The Gauls are a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and North Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period.

They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish.Archaeologically, they were the bearers of the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BCE).

In the 3rd century BCE, the Gauls expanded towards the southeast in a series of invasions, including the Gallic Invasion of Greece, settling as far east as Anatolia, as the Galatians.

They were conquered by Julius Caesar in the Gallic Wars in the 50s BCE, and during the Roman period became assimilated into a Gallo-Roman culture.

During the crisis of the third century, there was briefly a breakaway Gallic Empire under Postumus, Marcus Aurelius Marius and Tetricus I.

By the arrival of the Franks during the Migration Period (5th century), the Gaulish language had been replaced by Vulgar Latin.