A Telegram, a Tablecloth and a Theatre
The modern twin town grew out of the Second World War. On 14 November 1940, the English city of Coventry was heavily bombed. Its mayor, Alfred Robert Grindlay, had an idea: link cities in allied countries that had gone through the same kind of devastation. In 1942 it led to a telegram to the people of Stalingrad, now called Volgograd.
The friendship then got very personal. In response to the Battle of Stalingrad, 830 women in Coventry had their names embroidered on a tablecloth with the words "Little help is better than a lot of pity." Each woman donated six pence, and the cloth and the money were sent to Stalingrad. You can still see that tablecloth at the Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad.
The link became official in 1944. Coventry later added Belgrade, after a Yugoslav ambassador visited in 1953 and offered timber from his country for a new theatre. When it was finished, it was named the Belgrade Theatre.
Turning Old Foes into Friends
Pairing up towns, known as town twinning, is older than you might think. The earliest known twinning in Europe linked Paderborn in Germany with Le Mans in France back in 836. The first officially documented modern agreement came in 1931, between Toledo in the United States and Toledo in Spain.
After the Second World War, twinning took on a new job: helping former foes make peace. Coventry twinned with the German city of Kiel as early as 1947, and with Dresden in 1956. Reading became the first British town to link with a former "enemy" city, Düsseldorf, in 1947, and the bond still exists. Bath set up an "Alkmaar Adoption committee" in March 1945, while the Dutch city was still occupied, and children from both cities took part in exchanges in 1945 and 1946.
The idea caught on fast. As of 1995, the European Union counted more than 7,000 such pairings involving almost 10,000 towns, mostly French and German.
Dull, Boring and a City from a Novel
Some pairings seem made to raise a smile. In June 2012, the Scottish village of Dull and the US town of Boring, Oregon, agreed to twin, playing on their names to bring in tourists. Atlanta and Tbilisi became partners because both are capitals of a place called Georgia, one a US state and the other a country.
A few towns went further and twinned with places that do not exist at all. Wincanton in England is partnered with Ankh-Morpork, a city from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. The Isle of Skye in Scotland is twinned with the virtual Skylands.
Then there are Rome and Paris. Since 9 April 1956, the two have been twinned only with each other, under the motto "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris." At the other extreme, St Petersburg in Russia holds the record for the largest number of partnership arrangements of any community.
Trams, Tunes and Cartoons
Twin towns usually match for a reason. Partners often have a similar size and population, or share an industry, a history or a migrant community. Portland, Oregon, and Bologna in Italy bonded over biotechnology, education and a "similar attitude towards food". Indianapolis paired with Monza because both have a long history with auto racing. Chicago's link with Warsaw grew from Chicago's historic Polish community.
Some partnerships do real, practical work. In the 1990s, Nottingham in the UK was thinking about building a tram network, so it asked its twin city Karlsruhe, which has one of the best tram networks in Germany. With help from Karlsruhe's engineers, Nottingham finished its second tram line in 2013.
Others are all about culture. In 2014, Bristol and New Orleans announced a "tuning" partnership based on their shared musical heritage. Annecy in France and Nerima in Tokyo share a link built on their animation industries. And Washington, D.C. holds a yearly National Cherry Blossom Festival honoring its twin relationship with Tokyo.
Sisters, Brothers or Just Friends?
What you call these pairs depends on where you live. In the UK, "twin towns" is most common, while the Americas prefer "sister cities". Russian uses a phrase meaning "sworn brother cities". Iceland speaks of "friend towns", and China uses "friendly cities". In fact, China mostly avoids "sister cities", because the Chinese word for sisters means elder sister and younger sister, which could hint that one city ranks above the other.
Twinning is not just for cities either. The Canadian province of Alberta has sister province agreements with places such as Hokkaido in Japan, Jalisco in Mexico and California in the United States.
Today the habit has grown into city diplomacy, where cities build their own international ties alongside the usual world of embassies, ambassadors and treaties. As of 2016, there were over 125 networks and forums helping city governments work together, often on issues that affect the whole planet, such as climate change.
