Colophon was an ancient city in Ionia. Founded around the end of the 2nd millennium BC, it was likely one of the oldest of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. It was located between Lebedos and Ephesus. Its ruins are south of the town Değirmendere in the Menderes district of Izmir Province, Turkey.

Ionia was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day İzmir, Turkey. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who had settled in the region before the archaic period.