thumb|Location within [[France]]
The Pays de Bray (, literally Land of Bray) is a small (about 750 km<sup>2</sup>) natural region of France situated to the north-east of Rouen, straddling the French departments of the Seine-Maritime and the Oise (historically divided among the Provinces of Normandy and Picardy since 911, now divided among the administrative regions of Normandy and Picardy). The landscape is of bocage, a land use which arises from its clay soil, and is suited to the development of pasture for the raising of dairy cattle. It produces famous butters and cheeses such as Neufchâtel.
Etymology
Etymologically, the name of Bray comes from the Gaulish word braco, which became the Old French bray, meaning "marsh", "swamp", or "mud". The area appears to be so named as the soil distinguishes it from the neighbouring Pays de Caux; the sticky clay is quite different from the dry, firm chalk of the Pays de Caux.
Geology
Viewed geologically, the Pays de Bray is a relatively small eroded anticline along the Bray fault, breaking through rocks on the fringe of the Parisian Basin, which forms the chalk plateaus around it. It is a smaller version of the Weald of Kent and Sussex, but reveals the beds more deeply; down to the Upper Jurassic clay.
To the north is the Upper Cretaceous plateau of Picardy with the Pays de Caux to the west and the Vexin to the south-east. The erosion has exposed clay beds in an elliptically-shaped region which is called the buttonhole of the Pays de Bray. A "boutonnière" (buttonhole), in French geological language, is an eroded anticline. This is why the Pays de Bray's outline is shaped as a buttonhole, marked as it is with surrounding escarpments of 60 to 100 metres in height, making it a distinct physical and cultural entity.