Europe The earliest known town twinning in Europe was between
Paderborn, Germany, and
Le Mans, France, in 836. Starting in 1905,
Keighley in West Yorkshire, England, had a twinning arrangement with French communities
Suresnes and
Puteaux. The first recorded modern twinning agreement was between Keighley and
Poix-du-Nord in Nord, France, in 1920 following the end of the
World War I. This was initially referred to as an adoption of the French town; formal twinning charters were not exchanged until 1986. The practice was continued after the Second World War as a way to promote mutual understanding and cross-border projects of mutual benefit. The city of
Bath formed an "
Alkmaar Adoption committee" in March 1945, when the Dutch city was still occupied by the German Army in the final months of the war, and children from each city took part in exchanges in 1945 and 1946. Similarly, in 1947,
Bristol Corporation (later Bristol City Council) sent five "leading citizens" on a goodwill mission to
Hanover. Since 9 April 1956 Rome and Paris have been exclusively and reciprocally twinned with each other, following the motto: "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris." Within Europe, town twinning is supported by the European Union. As of 1995, the European Union had more than 7,000 bilateral relationships involving almost 10,000 European municipalities, primarily French (2837 twinnings) and German (2485 twinnings).
Public art has been used to celebrate twin town links, for instance in the form of seven mural paintings in the centre of the town of
Sutton, Greater London. The five main paintings show a number of the main 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 (above its main one) 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, if any, 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 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.
Annecy, France, and
Nerima, Tokyo have for several years shared a partnership based on their "co-existent animation industry".
North America is twinned with
Boring, Oregon, United States. with twin towns
fingerpost stele, in sister city
Melbourne Toledo, United States twinned with
Toledo, Spain in 1931, and was the first city in North America to engage in town twinning. 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 Asia (top) and Kuala Lumpur Avenue in
Isfahan (bottom) 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. 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 Oceania ==Linguistic reasons==