A province of Asia Minor, lying south and southeast of Bithynia and Paphlagonia, west of Pontus, north and northwest of Cappadocia, and north and northwest of Cappadocia, and north and northeast of Lycaonia and Phrygia. Its name was derived from the Gauls; of whom two tribes, (Trocmi and Tolistoboii,) migrated thither after the sacking of Rome by Brennus; and mingling with the former inhabitants, the whole were called Gallogracci, B. C. 280. The Celtic language continued to be spoken by their descendants at least until the time of Jerome, six hundred years after the migration; and these Gauls of Asia also retained much of the mercurial and impulsive disposition of the Gallic race. Compare Galatians 1:6 4:15 5:7. Under Augustus, about B. C. 26, this country was reduced to the form of a Roman province, and was governed by a proprietor. Galatia was distinguished for the fertility of its soil and the flourishing state of its trade. It was also the seat of colonies from various nations, among whom were many Jews; and from all of these Paul appears to have made many converts to Christianity, 1 Corinthians 16:1. His first visit, Acts 16:6, probably took place about A. D. 51-2; and the second, Acts 18:28, after which his epistle to the Galatians appears to have been written, was several years later. At his first visit he was sick; yet they received him "as an angel of God," and most heartily embraced the gospel. Four or five years afterwards Jewish teachers, professing Christianity, came among them; they denied Paul’s apostolic authority, exalted the works of the law, and perverted the true gospel by intermixing with it the rites of Judaism. Paul, learning their state, probably at Corinth, A. D. 57-8, wrote his epistle to the Galatians. He indignantly rebukes his children in Christ for their sudden alienation from him and from the truth; vindicates his authority and his teachings as an apostle, by showing that he received them from Christ himself; and forcibly presents the great doctrine of Christianity, justification by faith, with its relations to the law on the one hand, and to holy living on the other. The general subject of the epistle is the same as of the epistle to the Romans, and it appears to have been written at about the same time with that. The churches of Galatia are mentioned in ecclesiastical history for about nine hundred years.

This province of Galatia, within the limits of which these Celtic tribes were confined, was the central region of Asia Minor.

During his second missionary journey Paul, accompanied by Silas and Timothy (Acts 16:6), visited the "region of Galatia," where he was detained by sickness (Galatians 4:13), and had thus the longer opportunity of preaching to them the gospel. On his third journey he went over "all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order" (Acts 18:23). Crescens was sent thither by Paul toward the close of his life (2 Timothy 4:10).

(land of the Galli, Gauls ). The Roman province of Galatia may be roughly described as the central region of the peninsula of Asia Minor, bounded on the north by Bithynia and Paphlagonia; on the east by Pontus; on the south by Cappadocia and Lycaonia; on the west by Phrygia. --Encyc. Brit. It derived its name from the Gallic or Celtic tribes who, about 280 B.C., made an irruption into Macedonia and Thrace. It finally became a Roman province. The Galatia of the New Testament has really the "Gaul" of the East. The people have always been described as "susceptible of quick impressions and sudden changes, with a fickleness equal to their courage and enthusiasm, and a constant liability to that disunion which is the fruit of excessive vanity. --The Galatian churches were founded by Paul at his first visit, when he was detained among, them by sickness, (Galatians 4:13) during his second missionary journey, about A.D 51. He visited them again on his third missionary tour.