GALLE or POINT DE GALLE, a town and port of Ceylon on the south-west coast. Galle is hardly noticed in the native chron icles before 1267, and Ibn Batuta, in the middle of the 14th cen tury, distinctly states that Kali—that is, Galle—was a small town. It was not till the period of Portuguese occupation that it rose to importance. The opening of the Suez canal in 1869, and the con struction of a breakwater at Colombo, leading to the transfer of the mail and most of the commercial steamers to the capital of the island, seriously diminished the prosperity of Galle. The ex port trade is chiefly represented by coco-nut oil, rubber, coir yarn, fibre, rope and tea. Both the export and import trade for the district, however, now chiefly passes through Colombo. Pop.