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Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of the Braila county, in the close vecinity of Galati. Brăila currently has a population of 216,929.
A settlement at this location on the left bank of the Danube appears with the name Drinago in a circa 1350 Spanish Libro de conoscimiento ("Book of knowledge"). This may have been an erroneous transcription of Brillago. In Greek documents of roughly that time the city is referred to as Proilabum or Proilava.
The town was controlled by Ottoman Turks from medieval times until 1878; the Turks called it Ibrail or Ibraila. The Turkish settlement was attacked, plundered, and burned by the forces of Stefan cel Mare February 2, 1470, repressing the forces of Radu cel Frumos, who was allied with the Turks.
The city's greatest period of prosperity was in the early 20th century, when it was an important port for merchandise coming and going from Romania.
External link
- braila.net (http://www.braila.net/) (mostly in Romanian, but with some English language content (http://www.braila.net/citymain.html)) includes a Romanian-language a timeline (http://www.braila.net/cityhistmain.htm) of the city's history.
- braila.org (http://www.braila.org/) (in Romanian) is also an extensive site about the city.
Braila is one of the 3 most important historical harbours on the Danube of Muntenia: Turnu, Giurgiu and Braila.
During the 18th century it was one of the most important economical cities of Europe.
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