seaport and town, European Turkey. It lies on a narrow peninsula where the Dardanelles opens into the Sea of Marmara, 126 miles (203 km) west-southwest of Istanbul. An important Byzantine fortress, it was the first Ottoman (Ottoman Empire) conquest (c. 1356) in Europe and was maintained as a naval base because of its strategic importance for the defense of Istanbul. It was also a key transit station on the trade routes from Rumelia (Ottoman possessions in the Balkans) to Anatolia. In World War I, Gallipoli was the scene of determined Turkish resistance to the Allied forces during the Dardanelles Campaign, in which most of the town was destroyed. A storehouse of the Byzantine emperor Justinian (6th century), a 14th-century square castle attributed to the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, and mounds known as the tombs of Thracian kings still stand.

The new town, developed as a fishing and sardine-canning centre, is connected by road and steamer service with Istanbul and is also linked by road with Edirne. Pop. (2000) 23,127.