Galle is a town located on the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka, 119 km (74 mi) from Colombo. Galle was known as Gimhathiththa (although Ibn Batuta in the fourteenth century alludes to it as Qali) before the entry of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, when it was the fundamental port on the island. Galle achieved the height of its improvement in the eighteenth century, before the entry of the British, who built up the harbor at Colombo.