[1] Tirebolu is located on a hill named Ayana, which rises from the Black Sea shore just to the west of the Harşit River estuary.

Tirebolu has a small harbour and a fishing fleet, but the mainstay of the local economy is growing hazelnuts.

The Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder recounts that the ancient fortress city of Tripolis was founded (656 BC) as a trading colony of the Ancient Greek city-state of Miletos, one of nearly 90 along the Black Sea coast.

When Alexios Komnenos (later Emperor Alexios I of Trebizond) and his brother David founded the Empire of Trebizond in April 1204, about the time the Fourth Crusade captured and sacked Constantinople, Tripoli became part of this empire.

In 1916 the coast was occupied by Russian troops for two years during the First World War, being restored to Turkish control in 1917.