Braila is an industrial port city on the Danube river in Muntenia, eastern Romania. The current population is approximately 217,000. Founded in the 14th century, it went through a long period in the late Middle Ages as a Turkish kaza before becoming one of the newly unified Romanian state's most important ports in the 19th century. Heavily redeveloped in the 1980s under Ceausescu's systematization policy (similar to many Romanian cities), much of its historic architectural stock has disappeared. A compact core of 19th-century buildings can be found around the picturesque Piata Traian and several of the streets radiating outwards from it.

Lying in a rather economically depressed corner of the country off the main transport routes, Braila sees few tourists. Only some 30 kilometers from Galati and sitting to the west of Tulcea, the city is occasionally visited as a backdoor in or out of the Danube Delta. The granting of European funds for civic restoration in early 2006 could lead to a change in the city's fortunes.