Galle, Johann Gottfried, 1812-1910, German astronomer. He is noted for his discovery of the planet Neptune, Sept. 23, 1846, by following the guidance of calculations by Leverrier. Galle was then a member of the staff of the Berlin Observatory and had discovered three comets. In 1851 he became professor of astronomy at Breslau and director of the observatory there. His particular field of research was meteorology.

Galle, city (1995 est. pop. 87,000), capital of Southern prov., extreme S Sri Lanka, on the Indian Ocean. An agricultural market center, it exports tea, rubber, coconut oil, cloves, and other products of the surrounding region. The city has a cement factory as well. Famous as a trade center for Chinese and Arabs by 100 B.C., Galle rose to prominence under Portuguese rule (1507-1640), when it became Sri Lanka's chief port. It was the capital of Sri Lanka under the Dutch (1640-56), whose original fort, built to guard the harbor, still stands. The city passed to the British in 1796. Its commercial importance continued until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the construction (1885) by the British of a modern harbor at Colombo. Since the 1960s congestion and labor problems at the port of Colombo have diverted some shipping to Galle. In Dec., 2004, Galle was devastated by a tsunami caused by an earthquake off N Sumatra.