Ancient Corinth occupied a strategic position beside the Isthmus, where land routes joined the Peloponnese to central Greece and short portages linked the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs. Neolithic settlement began around the seventh millennium BCE, but the city became especially powerful in the Archaic period. Its rulers controlled ports at Lechaion and Kenchreai, developed the paved diolkos for moving cargo and vessels across the isthmus, founded colonies including Syracuse and Corcyra, produced widely traded pottery, and drew revenue from commerce passing between western and eastern Mediterranean networks.

Corinth built major sanctuaries, including the Temple of Apollo, and competed within the shifting alliances and wars of the Greek city-states. It resisted Athenian power, participated in the Peloponnesian and Corinthian wars, and later entered leagues dominated by Macedon and then Rome. In 146 BCE the Roman commander Lucius Mummius captured and destroyed the city after conflict with the Achaean League. Julius Caesar refounded Corinth as a Roman colony in 44 BCE. The rebuilt city became capital of Achaea, a prosperous administrative and commercial center with forums, fountains, baths, shops, temples, and entertainment buildings.

The apostle Paul lived in Roman Corinth in the first century CE, worked with Aquila and Priscilla, and addressed Christian communities whose disputes are reflected in his letters. Late antique churches, earthquakes, invasions, changing trade, and medieval settlement altered the urban area. The fortified height of Acrocorinth above the city remained strategically important under Byzantine, Frankish, Venetian, and Ottoman rulers, whose walls repeatedly incorporated and rebuilt earlier defenses. Modern Corinth shifted toward the coast, while the village of Ancient Corinth continued among buried remains at the foot of the hill.

Systematic excavation by the American School of Classical Studies began in 1896 in cooperation with Greek authorities. The visible archaeological zone emphasizes the Greek Temple of Apollo and the Roman forum, Lechaion Road, Peirene Fountain, basilicas, shops, and judicial or administrative monuments. Seven monolithic columns of Apollo's temple stand largely as ancient fabric, while many lower walls, pavements, and architectural blocks were excavated, consolidated, partially re-erected, or arranged for interpretation. The museum is a twentieth-century building, and the extensive walls on Acrocorinth represent several later periods rather than a purely classical fortress.

Greece's Ministry of Culture manages the archaeological site and museum, while continuing research involves Greek and international institutions. Ticketing, routes, and access to specific structures vary with conservation and season. The site is not the totality of ancient Corinth: modern homes, cultivated land, unexcavated areas, ports, cemeteries, and the distant fortification form parts of the larger landscape. Interpretation should distinguish Greek, Roman, early Christian, and medieval layers and explain excavation choices. Corinth's significance lies precisely in destruction, refoundation, religious change, trade, and long reuse, not in a reconstructed single-period city.