Eceabat is a town situated on the eastern side of the Gallipoli Peninsula, on the shore of the Dardanelles. Its current importance for tourism in the region results from the proximity of the most important places associated with the military campaign during the First World War, including battlefields and cemeteries of the fallen soldiers. In addition, Eceabat is an important ferry port which enables crossing the Dardanelles Strait to the city of Çanakkale, located on the Asian shore of the strait.

Eceabat was formerly known as Maydos (Madytos), and its current name is probably a distorted Arabic word from the military dictionary – Hijabat – which means the furthest point of command on the battlefield.

The city was founded as a Greek colony, in the 7th century BCE. The settlers were the Greeks from the Aeolian tribe, living on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea. Later, Maydos was also settled by the Greeks from the cities of Miletus and Klazomenai in Asia Minor. Maydos is mentioned by the historian Herodotus in the context of the wars against the Persians, and by Thucydides, in reference to the battle of Eurymedon, fought between the member states of the Ionian League and the Persian Empire in 466 BCE.

In the Byzantine period, Maydos was a famous trading port. In the 15th century, the Turks conquered it, but until the 20-ies of the 20th century, the city was inhabited mainly by the Greek population. As a result of population exchange established by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, most of the inhabitants were resettled to the present-day Greece.