Sister city

A sister city or a twin town relationship is a form of legal or social agreement between two cities that are far apart and belong to different countries. The main goal is to help people from these cities learn more about each other’s cultures and maybe do business together.

Even though some cities have had friendly links since the 800s, the idea of sister cities as we know them today started during World War II. This helped bring people closer even when their countries were not friends.

There are also names like “partner city” for these relationships. They are not about being related by location, like two cities that grow up next to each other. Instead, they are about sharing and learning across oceans and borders.

For movies with similar names, you can look up Sister Cities (film) or Twin Town. If you are interested in cities that are actually next to each other, check out Twin cities. There is also an album called Sister Cities (album) by the Wonder Years.

Origins of the modern concept

Cities have long shared cultures, but the first official sister-city agreement was made in 1931 between Toledo, United States and Toledo, Spain. The idea of twinning towns began during World War II, inspired by events in Coventry. After hard times, the mayor of Coventry sent a message to the people of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in 1942. This started a friendship that grew over time.

After the war, more cities formed these friendships to help each other heal and understand better. Coventry later twinned with cities in Germany, such as Kiel and Dresden, and also with Belgrade. These links were meant to bring peace, encourage trade, and support tourism. Today, any place can become a twin city, helping to build strong international connections.

Terminology

In the United Kingdom, people usually say "twin towns" for agreements with other towns. In places like the Americas, they say "sister cities". Many countries in Europe have their own words for these friendships between towns. For example, Spain uses "ciudades hermanadas", which means "sister cities".

Cities and towns all over the world become friends with each other. This is called having a sister city or twin town. Sometimes, bigger areas like states or provinces also become friends, not just cities.

City diplomacy is when leaders and people from different cities talk to each other, even if their cities are in different countries. This helps cities work together on important issues, like taking care of the environment. Big groups like the United Cities and Local Governments help make these friendships possible. Cities also work together to help each other with things like trade and tourism.

Not only cities make friends — states, provinces, and other big areas can become sister partners too. For example, the Canadian province of Alberta has friendship agreements with places like Gangwon, South Korea, Hokkaido, Japan, and California, United States.

By continent

Europe

For a more comprehensive list, see List of twin towns and sister cities in Europe.

The first known town twinning in Europe was between Paderborn, Germany, and Le Mans, France, in 836. In 1905, Keighley in England began a twinning arrangement with French communities Suresnes and Puteaux. The first modern twinning agreement was between Keighley and Poix-du-Nord in France in 1920 after the end of World War I. This was called an adoption of the French town at first; formal twinning charters were exchanged much later in 1986.

The practice continued after the Second World War to promote understanding and projects that benefit both sides. For example, Coventry twinned with Stalingrad and later with Dresden as an act of peace. The city of Bath formed an "Alkmaar Adoption committee" in 1945, when the Dutch city was still occupied, and children from each city took part in exchanges. In 1947, Bristol Corporation sent people on a goodwill mission to Hanover. Reading in 1947 was the first British town to form links with a former enemy city – Düsseldorf, a link that still exists. Since 1956 Rome and Paris have been exclusively and reciprocally twinned with each other.

Within Europe, town twinning is supported by the European Union. The support scheme was established in 1989. In 2003 an annual budget of about €12 million was allocated to about 1,300 projects. The Council of European Municipalities and Regions works with the commission to promote twinning initiatives and exchanges that involve all sections of the community. It has launched a website dedicated to town twinning. As of 1995, the European Union had more than 7,000 bilateral relationships involving almost 10,000 European municipalities, primarily French and German.

Public art has been used to celebrate twin town links, for instance in the form of paintings in the centre of the town of Sutton, Greater London. The paintings show features of the London Borough of Sutton and its four twin towns, along with the heraldic shield of each above the other images. Each painting also features a plant as a visual representation of its town's environmental awareness. In the case of Sutton this is in a separate smaller painting showing a beech tree, intended as a symbol of prosperity and from which Carshalton Beeches in the borough derives its name. Another example of the use of public art is the wall sculpture of the partner cities of Munich, Germany.

A recent study has concluded that geographical distance has very little influence upon communities' selections of a twin town. Twinned towns are often chosen because of similarities between them; thus about 15 towns in Wales are twinned with towns in Brittany, and Oxford is with Bonn, Leiden, Grenoble and other university cities. In Italy, sets of twins are Rovigo with Viernheim, Bedford and Tulcea. Many former West German cities are twinned with former East German cities; these twinning links were established before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Famous examples are the partnerships of Hanover and Leipzig, both of which have important trade fair grounds, or between Hamburg and Dresden. The first US-German town twinning was in 1947 between Worthington, Minnesota and Crailsheim. St Petersburg in Russia holds the record for the largest number of partnership arrangements with other communities. In 2012, the Scottish village of Dull and the US town of Boring, Oregon, agreed to twin their municipalities to promote tourism in both places, playing on their names.

In the early 21st century, some towns made novelty twinning arrangements with fictional or virtual locations. For example, Wincanton, England is partnered with Ankh-Morpork from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, and the Isle of Skye, Scotland is twinned with the virtual Skylands. Town twinning has increasingly been used to form strategic international business links. For example, in the 1990s, when the Nottingham City Council in the UK considered installing a tram network, it consulted experts from its twin city of Karlsruhe, which has one of the most extensive and efficient tram networks in Germany. With assistance from Karlsruhe's specialist engineers, Nottingham completed its second tram line in 2013. In 2014, Bristol and New Orleans announced their intention to form a partnership based on a shared musical heritage and culture, at the initiative of Bristol Mayor George Ferguson. Annecy, France, and Nerima, Tokyo have for several years shared a partnership based on their animation industry.

North America

For a more comprehensive list, see List of twin towns and sister cities in North America.

Toledo, United States twinned with Toledo, Spain in 1931, and was the first city in North America to engage in town twinning. Vancouver, Canada twinned with Odesa, Ukraine in 1944, was the first twinned city in Canada and the second in North America, while Denver, Colorado, twinned with Brest, France, was the second twinned city in the United States. Liberal, Kansas was twinned with Olney, United Kingdom in 1950, and the cities have run a joint Pancake Day race ever since. Littleton, Colorado, twinned with Bega, Australia, in 1961. Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan, was twinned with Seattle, Washington, in 1973. Rochester, Minnesota, and Knebworth, UK, both centers for primary medical research, twinned in 1967. Ontario, California, has five sister cities around the world. They are Brockville, Ontario, Canada (since 1977); Guamúchil, Sinaloa, Mexico (since 1982); Mocorito, Sinaloa, Mexico (since 1982); Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico (since 1988); and Winterthur, Canton of Zürich, Switzerland. Oakville, Ontario is twinned with Dorval, Quebec; Huai'an, China, and Neyagawa, Osaka, Japan.

Town twinning begins for a variety of reasons. Generally, partner towns have similar demographics and size. They may arise from business connections, travel, similar industries, diaspora communities, or shared history. For example, the partnership between Portland, Oregon and Bologna, Italy arose from shared industries in biotechnology and education, and a "similar attitude towards food", whereas Chicago's link with Warsaw, Poland began with Chicago's historic Polish community. The twinning of Indianapolis with Monza, Italy, is due to both cities' long association with auto racing. Or in the case of Atlanta and Tbilisi, the two cities twinned over their shared status as a capital of Georgia.

A twin towns program was instituted in the United States in 1956 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a citizen diplomacy initiative. Sister Cities International (SCI) was originally a program of the National League of Cities, but it became a separate corporation in 1967 due to the growth and popularity of the program. Twin town cultural events include the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., honoring Washington's twin relationship with Tokyo City. Many twinned towns developed business agreements with their partners. For example, Vermont's Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream company opened a factory in the Republic of Karelia in Russia and offered the same profit-sharing plan to its Russian employees.

South America

For a more comprehensive list, see List of twin towns and sister cities in South America

Asia

For a more comprehensive list, see List of twin towns and sister cities in Asia

China's sister city relationships are managed by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a united front organization. Sister city initiatives are an increasingly widespread mechanism for Chinese public diplomacy. From the early 2000s until 2024, the number of China's sister city relationships doubled. More than one-third of Chinese sister city relationships are with sister cities in the east Asia Pacific region.

Town twinning is supported in Japan by the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, a joint agency of local governments established by the Japanese government in 1988 (similar to Sister Cities International, its counterpart in the US). In Japan, the international city relations may be split into multiple terms, such as Sister Cities, Friendship Cooperation Cities, Business Partner Cities (BPC), Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Sister Ports / Friendship Ports, etc. China mostly uses the term "friendship cooperation cities" rather than "sister cities", as the Chinese words for sisters, "姐妹" (reading: jiěmèi, literally elder sister and younger sister), could imply a hierarchical relationship. In the 2010s, Tokyo began to actively promote 'city diplomacy' with other global cities at the initiative of governor Yoichi Masuzoe.

Africa

For a more comprehensive list, see List of twin towns and sister cities in Africa

Oceania

For a more comprehensive list, see List of twin towns and sister cities in Oceania

Linguistic reasons

Sometimes, towns become sister cities because they share the same name or similar names. This can happen if one town was named after another, like Córdoba, or if both towns have names that come from the same root word, like Santiago de Compostela. These name similarities often come from sharing a common language or from one town having been part of another country in the past.

Political significance

Sometimes, cities become sister cities for political reasons. For example, in 2013, the Hungarian city Gyöngyös became a sister city with Shusha in Azerbaijan. This showed Hungary's support for Azerbaijan.

Countries also use these relationships to share their views on important issues. In 2016, when Bulgaria recognized a historical event involving Armenia, Turkey ended some of its sister city agreements with Bulgaria in response.

In recent years, some U.S. states have made rules about which countries they can form sister city relationships with. This shows how these partnerships can mean more than just friendship.

Termination

Some cities have ended their sister city relationships for different reasons.

In 2012, Nanjing stopped its relationship with Nagoya after some upsetting statements were made.

In 2013, Milan, Venice, and Turin in Italy ended their links with Saint Petersburg because of laws in Russia that some people disagreed with.

In 2014, Prague ended its partnership with Saint Petersburg and Moscow because of actions Russia took in Ukraine.

In 2017, Osaka ended its long relationship with San Francisco because of a memorial in San Francisco that some people in Osaka did not agree with.

In 2020, a town in the Netherlands ended its friendship with a town in Poland because of disagreements about policies related to the LGBTQ+ community.

In 2022, many cities around the world ended their relationships with cities in Russia because of Russia's actions in Ukraine.

In 2023, Barcelona ended its relationship with Tel Aviv because of disagreements about policies in Israel.