France is the country of cheese. Quite symbolically, the number of varieties is said to be 365, one for each day of the year, but there are probably more. A few have a generic name, such as tomme or fourme (a simple alteration of fromage) or even reblochon, from the dialectal word "reblocher", meaning to milk a second time.
Other cheeses refer to the region or area where they come from, which is obvious from the preposition in bleu de Bresse, crottin de Chavignol, or brie de Meaux, but more allusive with livarot or cantal. Many local cheeses bear the names of saints (saint-florentin, saint-andré, saint-marcellin, saint-paulin or saint-nectaire), a number of them are named after the place where they were introduced. When eating a piece of tasty munster, or spreading some creamy coulommiers, pont-l'évêque, camembert or époisses on a slice of bread, we usually forget that Munster is a town in Alsace, Coulommiers a village in the south-east of Paris, Pont-L'évêque or Camembert in Normandy, and Epoisses in Burgundy.
Most of the time, the same kind of cheese is generally produced in the surrounding area as well. A variety of emmental, emmental français for instance, is made in the French Alps although Emmental is a valley in Switzerland. But there is at least one exception: several kinds of blue cheese are made throughout France, but the one and only roquefort must have been matured in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, a village in Aveyron, and nowhere else.
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