Found­ed in the 16th cen­tu­ry by the Por­tuguese, Galle reached the height of its devel­op­ment in the 18th cen­tu­ry, before the arrival of the British. It is the best exam­ple of a for­ti­fied city built by Euro­peans in South and South-East Asia, show­ing the inter­ac­tion between Euro­pean archi­tec­tur­al styles and South Asian tra­di­tions.