Town twinning is a concept whereby towns or cities in geographically and politically distinct areas are paired with the goal of fostering human contact and cultural links. In Europe, such pairs of towns are known as twin towns, friendship towns or partner towns; in North America and Australasia, the term sister cities is used for the same concept; and brother cities is the term in the former Soviet bloc. Sister cities often (though by no means always) have similar demographic and other characteristics. Sometimes, even larger areas enter into “twinning” agreements, such as that between the provinces of Hainan in China and Jeju in South Korea.

The concept can be likened to a scaled up version of a “pen pal” scheme, in which the “pals” are whole towns or cities. In practice, the twinning arrangements often lead to student exchange programs, as well as economic and cultural collaborations.

Sometimes, people will use the phrase “sister cities” to mean cities that are neither very close together, nor from two different cultures and officially twinned, but rather two cities with similar cultures and/or historical background, as with Galveston, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana, two cities that were historically major Southern ports on the Gulf coast. Another example is Charleston, South Carolina and Boston, Massachusetts (see the Charleston article for a description of their colonial-era relationship). “Twin Towns” is also used as a colloquialism for the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, specifically referring to the central twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

For more information, including lists of sister cities and discussions of the practice in Europe and North America, visit the web site below. Lots of links to other stuff there too.

Cultural Relations, such as tourism, education (usually these cities will have exchange programs), etc.

The purpose is a cultural exchange.

Determination is multi-faceted:

location, size, climate, per capita wealth, etc.

It makes the smaller city feel more important, and the larger one magnanimous.

its all about getting a status for tourism..