Brăila

Brăila stands on the lower Danube, where the river opens toward the Black Sea. Its harbour linked Wallachia with merchants from Brașov and the wider Danubian world. A medieval commercial privilege allowed merchants from Brașov to carry goods by the road through Brăila without paying certain Wallachian customs dues.

The Ottomans took the town in the early sixteenth century and ruled it as İbrail. Its port supplied grain to Istanbul and served the trade of the lower Danube. The fortress became a target in repeated wars between the Ottoman and Russian empires. Following the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, Brăila returned to Wallachian administration, opening a new chapter for a port whose position had long made it valuable to rival powers.