Twin cities (geographical proximity)

This article is about the general concept of "twin cities". For the area typically called the "Twin Cities" in the United States, see Minneapolis–Saint Paul. For other uses, see Twin city (disambiguation).

Twin cities are a special case of two cities or urban centres that are founded in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time. The term Twin Cities in the United States refers specifically to the cities Minneapolis and Saint Paul, both of which are in the midwestern state of Minnesota.

Cities twinned geographically do not necessarily match demographically, economically, or politically.

In most cases, cities that grow into each other's space in this way lose their individual identities, and whatever border or barrier still separates them becomes irrelevant as they fuse into one new city. One famous example of this is Budapest in Hungary, which began as two settlements (Buda and Pest) facing each other across the Danube at a strategic fording place along a trade route. However, there are twin cities which have been able to resist this final union and have maintained individual identity against the tides of history, economics and demographics.

Twin cities often share an airport, into whose airport codes are integrated the initials of both cities; DFW (Dallas–Fort Worth), MSP (Minneapolis–St. Paul), and RDU (Raleigh–Durham) are examples.

In some cases, such as Albury/Wodonga in Australia, the two cities are permanently divided by a state border, often one that strictly adheres to a geographical landmark, such as the Murray River that divides New South Wales from Victoria, and thus Albury from Wodonga.

Examples

A remarkable example of twin cities: Plaza Internacional of the Frontera de la Paz. On the left, Santana do Livramento (Brazil); on the right, Rivera (Uruguay).

Asia

• Dhaka and Gazipur, Bangladesh
• Seleucia and Ctesiphon, Iraq. Historical Al-Mada'in.
• Tel Aviv and Jaffa, Israel
• Okayama and Kurashiki, Japan. Kurashiki serves as suburb to slightly larger Okayama.
• Tsukuba and Tsuchiura, Japan. Co-centers of a shared major metropolitan area.
• Nasushiobara and Otawara, Japan. Co-centers of a shared local micropolitan area.
• Kamisu and Kashima, Japan. Co-centers of a shared local micropolitan area.
• Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan
• Jhelum and Sarai Alamgir, Pakistan
• Guangzhou and Foshan, People's Republic of China
• Hong Kong and Shenzhen, People's Republic of China
• Macau and Zhuhai, People's Republic of China
• Dipolog and Dapitan, Philippines
• Taipei and New Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Dammam and Khobar, Saudi Arabia
• Johor Bahru, Malaysia and Singapore
• Seoul and Incheon, South Korea
• Bangkok and Nonthaburi, Thailand
• Chiang Mai and Lamphun, Thailand
• Songkhla and Hatyai, Thailand
• Ramallah and al-Bireh, in the West Bank

India

• Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, Gujarat, are considered to be in the process of merging into a new twin city.
• Asansol and Durgapur, West Bengal
• Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, Odisha
• Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali, Punjab
• Durg and Bhilai, Chhattisgarh
• Ghaziabad and Noida,Uttar Pradesh,
• Hubli and Dharwad, Karnataka
• Hyderabad and Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh
• Kochi and Ernakulam, Kerala
• Kolkata and Howrah, West Bengal
• Lucknow and Kanpur,Uttar Pradesh
• Mandla and Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh
• Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Maharashtra
• Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, Maharashtra
• Ranchi and Hatia, Jharkhand
• Sangli and Miraj
• Savar and Kundla, Savarkundla Gujarat
• Siliguri and Jalpaiguri, West Bengal
• Surat and Navsari, Gujarat, are in the process of merging and will be completed by 2015.
• Tirunelveli and Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu
• Udhana and Sachin, Gujarat, Gujarat, are one of the first Twin Cities in India
• Vijayawada and Bejawada, Andhra Pradesh
• Visakhapatnam and Gangavaram, Andhra Pradesh
• Warangal, Hanamakonda Kazipet, Andhra Pradesh

Proposed New Twin Cities in Karnataka,India

Shivamogga and Bhadravati in Karnataka. Harihar and Davangere in Karnataka.

Europe

• Gornja Radgona, Slovenia and Bad Radkersburg, Austria
• Vienna, Austria and Bratislava, Slovakia
• Aalborg and Nørresundby, Denmark
• Brighton and Hove, England
• Chatham and Rochester, England "it's a wise man who knows where Chatham ends and Rochester begins." Charles Dickens
• City of London and City of Westminster, England. Both were absorbed into Greater London in 1965.
• Leeds and Bradford, England
• Manchester and Salford, England
• Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead, England
• Sheffield and Rotherham, England
• Warwick and Royal Leamington Spa, England
• Marseille and Aix en Provence, France
• Valka, Latvia and Valga, Estonia
• Ludwigshafen and Mannheim, Germany
• Mainz and Wiesbaden, Germany
• Ulm and Neu-Ulm, Germany
• Zgorzelec, Poland and Görlitz, Germany
• Buda and Pest, Hungary
• Komárno, Slovakia and Komárom, Hungary
• Rotterdam and The Hague, The Netherlands
• Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg, Norway
• Porsgrunn and Skien, Norway
• Sandnes and Stavanger, Norway
• Bielsko and Biała, Poland
• Těšín, Czech Republic and Cieszyn, Poland
• Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
• Novi Sad and Petrovaradin, Serbia
• Zemun and New Belgrade, Serbia
• Gorizia, Italy and Nova Gorica, Slovenia
• Alcobendas and San Sebastian de los Reyes in Madrid, Spain
• Barcelona and Badalona in Catalonia, Spain
• Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden, often referred to as twin cities, as part of the Öresund Region, divided by the Øresund strait.
• Gothenburg and Mölndal, Sweden
• Tornio, Finland and Haparanda, Sweden

North America

• Minneapolis and St. Paul, long known as the "Twin Cities"
• Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin, nicknamed the Twin Ports, form the largest freshwater port in the world
• San Diego and Tijuana, across the Mexico–United States border.
• Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C., as part of the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area
• Dallas and Fort Worth, the twin cores of the Metroplex of northern Texas.
• Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, the two main cities of the three-city Research Triangle area.
• Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario
• Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, the two largest cities of the Tampa Bay Area
• Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, locally known as the Knowledge Corridor.
• Halifax and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia: though both cities were merged into Metropolitan Halifax, they are geographically separated by Halifax Harbour and retain separate identities.
• Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the core cities of the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania.
• Kitchener and Waterloo, Ontario
• Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec form the National Capital Region, geopolitically separated by the Ottawa River.
• Battleford and North Battleford, Saskatchewan are geographically separated by the North Saskatchewan River. While the communities are commonly referred to by the collective "The Battlefords," they retain distinctive identities.
• Lloydminster represents a unique former case. Until 1930, the community, divided by the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, was two separate, adjacent towns. However, with the Town of Lloydminster Acts, the community became a single, integrated bi-provincial town.
• Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, site of the principal campus of the University of Illinois
• Mexicali, Mexico and Calexico, California
• Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora
• Midland, Texas and Odessa, Texas, collectively known as the "Petroplex".
• Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas
• Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila
• Del Rio, Texas and Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila
• Presidio, Texas and Manuel Ojinaga, Chihuahua
• El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
• San Francisco and Oakland, California, connected by the Oakland Bay Bridge over the San Francisco Bay

Several twin cities share names across an international border. These include:

• Boquillas, Texas and Boquillas del Carmen, Coahuila
• Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas
• Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario
• Naco, Arizona and Naco, Sonora
• Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora
• Portal, North Dakota and North Portal, Saskatchewan
• Progreso, Texas and Nuevo Progreso, Río Bravo, Tamaulipas
• Tecate, California and Tecate, Baja California
• San Luis, Arizona and San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora
• Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

South America

• Carmen de Patagones and Viedma, Argentina
• Santa Fe and Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina
• Aparecida and Guaratinguetá, Brazil
• Chuí, Brazil and Chuy, Uruguay
• Cuiabá and Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso, Brazil
• Florianópolis and São José, Santa Catarina, Brazil
• Ilhéus and Itabuna, Brazil
• Juazeiro and Petrolina, Brazil
• Teresina, Piauí and Timon, Maranhão, Brazil
• Recife and Olinda, Brazil
• Paramaribo and Lelydorp, Suriname
• Rivera, Uruguay and Santana do Livramento, Brazil
• Vitória and Vila Velha, Brazil
• Concepción and Talcahuano, Chile
• La Serena, Chile and Coquimbo, Chile
• Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, Chile
• Barranquilla and Soledad, Atlántico, Colombia
• Leticia, Colombia and Tabatinga, Brazil
• Lima and Callao, Peru

Australia

• Albury and Wodonga
• Canberra and Queanbeyan
• Gold Coast and Tweed Heads
• Forster and Tuncurry
• Harden and Murrumburrah
• Perth and Fremantle
• Townsville and Thuringowa

Africa

• Rabat and Salé, Morocco.
• Fes and Meknes, Morocco
• Kinshasa, capital of Congo DR and Brazzaville, capital of Republic of the Congo
• Cairo and Giza, Egypt
• Harar and Dire Dawa, Ethiopia
• Sekondi and Takoradi, Ghana

Fictional twin cities

• Gotham City (the home of Batman) and Metropolis (the home of Superman) have sometimes been presented as twin cities, mainly in 1970s and 1980s stories by DC Comics. The two cities were shown as located on opposite sides of a large bay.
• Central City and Keystone City, from the current Flash comics, are shown as twin cities. Before the 1985-86 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, Central and Keystone are presented as located in the same space but on different parallel Earths.
• Ankh-Morpork, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, is referred to as "the twin cities of proud Ankh and pestilent Morpork"^{[citation needed]}
• Duckburg and St. Canard were depicted in the cartoon Darkwing Duck as sister cities connected by a bridge, very similar to Oakland and San Francisco.
• Springfield and Shelbyville from The Simpsons are usually presented as twin cities with an intense rivalry.

Quad cities

• In Iowa: Iowa City, Coralville, University Heights and North Liberty
• In North Carolina, the Unifour: Hickory, Lenoir, Morganton and Alexander County
• The Quad Cities of Ontario, Canada include Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and Guelph, Ontario.
• Quad Cities of Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois. It also includes a fifth member, East Moline, Illinois.
• The Florence-Muscle Shoals Metropolitan Area in Alabama is locally referred to as "the Quad Cities", with Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. Formerly, when Muscle Shoals was a mere village, this region was known a "Tri-Cities", Alabama. Actually, they are all incorporated as towns except for Florence.
• The Quad Cities of Minnesota consist of Virginia, Eveleth, Gilbert, and Mountain Iron.
• The cities of Pullman, Washington, Moscow, Idaho, Clarkston, Washington, and Lewiston, Idaho have marketed themselves as "Quad Cities."
• Pattaya-Chonburi Metropolitan Area consists of the City of Pattaya, Town of Chonburi, Portal town of Laem Chabang and Town of Sattahip on the west coast of Chonburi Province, Thailand

Examples of cities formed by amalgamation

Asia

• Wuhan in China consists of the towns of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang in Hubei Province
• Bangkok the capital and largest city of Thailand was created in 1971 when the previous Bangkok province (Phra Nakhon) was merged with Thonburi province.
• Fukuoka in Japan, a city of 1.4 million people, formerly the twin cities of Hakata and Fukuoka until the late 19th century.
• Saitama in Japan, a city of 1.2 million people, created in 2001 by the merger of the cities of Urawa, Omiya, Yono, and later Iwatsuki. Urawa and Omiya could formerly have been considered twin cities.
• Kitakyushu in Japan, a city of 900 thousand people, created in 1963 by the merger of Yahata, Kokura, Moji, Wakamatsu, and Tobata. Yahata and Kokura had formerly been major cities in their own right.

Europe

• London grew from its cores in the City of London and the City of Westminster to encompass many other towns and villages.
• Budapest is the amalgamation of Buda, Pest and Óbuda.
• Berlin (Berlin and Cölln), in Germany
• Duisburg (Duisburg and Hamborn, 1929–1935 called Duisburg-Hamborn), in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Wuppertal (Barmen and Elberfeld), in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Zagreb grew from the twin towns of Gradec and Kaptol.
• Belgrade now includes the formerly separate city of Zemun.
• Greater Manchester consists of 10 metropolitan boroughs including the city of Salford.

North America

• Richmond (Richmond and Manchester) in central Virginia
• Cleveland (Cleveland and Ohio City) in Ohio
• Minneapolis. St. Anthony (not to be confused with St. Anthony Village, a modern city which is a suburb) was a twin city to Minneapolis in the two cities' youth. Minneapolis annexed St. Anthony in the late 1800s.
• New York City (five boroughs, historically especially between Manhattan and Brooklyn)
• Fremont, California was formed in 1956 by the combination of the five towns of Centerville, Irvington, Niles, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs, California. The town of Newark has always refused to merge into Fremont, and Newark is completely surrounded by Fremont.
• What is now the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina was once two separate towns called Winston and Salem that were combined into one.
• Ottawa, Ontario, was given its large area by the amalgamation in 2001 of the old City of Ottawa, the suburbs of Nepean, Kanata, Gloucester, Rockcliffe Park, Vanier and Cumberland, Orleans, and the rural townships of West Carleton, Osgoode, Rideau, and Goulbourn
• Gatineau, Quebec, formed by the amalgamation of the old City of Gatineau, City of Hull, City of Aylmer, City of Buckingham and the Municipality of Masson-Angers all facing the City of Ottawa, Ontario from the north shore of the Ottawa River.
• Toronto formed by an amalgamation of the Old Toronto with East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and York, which were themselves products of earlier amalgamations.
• Thunder Bay, Ontario (Fort William and Port Arthur).
• Lloydminster, Canada, on the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, was formed as a single entity in 1903, when both future provinces were part of the Northwest Territories, but was divided into two separate entities in 1905 because the border between the newly created provinces bisected the community. In 1930, the two towns were reunited as a single town under the shared jurisdiction of both provinces, and Lloydminster was reincorporated as a single city in 1958.
• Halifax and Dartmouth (Canada) were forcibly merged in 1996 along with Bedford and Halifax County to create the Halifax Regional Municipality.
• Saguenay, Quebec (Chicoutimi, Jonquière, et al.)
• Seattle annexed the neighboring towns of West Seattle and Ballard.
• Lincoln City, Oregon was formed in 1965 by merging the extant seaside towns of Oceanlake, Delake, and Taft, with the adjoining unincorporated areas of Nelscott and Cutler City.
• Pittsburgh annexed Allegheny City, which is now the quarter of the city that lies north of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. Also annexed was Birmingham, now referred to as the "South Side".
• Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, officially founded in 1961 is actually composed of the old town of San Félix at the east and the new modern planned town of Puerto Ordaz at the west of Caroní river in Bolívar state.
• Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which absorbed the cities of South Bethlehem, and West Bethlehem. The former Bethlehem and South Bethlehem are situated in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and West Bethlehem is in Lehigh County. As a result, present-day Bethlehem straddles the county line.
• Montreal, Quebec, was merged with the other 27 communities on the Island of Montreal by an act in the Quebec Parliament in 2002. Several communities later voted via referendum to de-merge and there are now a total of 15, leaving Montreal merged with the other 12.
• Kingston, Ontario was amalgamated in 1998 with the neighboring Kingston and Pittsburgh Townships.
• Winnipeg, Manitoba amalgamated with 12 surrounding municipalities and its metropolitan corporation in 1971 under what was referred to as unicity reforms in local government restructuring.
• Helena-West Helena, Arkansas was formed in 2006 by the merger of the previous cities of Helena and West Helena.
• Greater Sudbury, Ontario, was formed in 2001 by the amalgamation of the former Regional Municipality of Sudbury, comprising the municipalites of Sudbury, Nickel Centre, Valley East, Capreol, Rayside-Balfour, Onaping Falls and Walden, plus a number of previously unamalgamated townships. The amalgamation made it the most populous city in the Northern Ontario region.
• Boston, Massachusetts is made up of the former towns of Boston, Dorchester, Brighton, Roxbury, Charlestown, and Hyde Park.

See also

• Divided cities
• United cities
• Cross-border town naming
• Megacity
• Sister cities
• List of metropolitan areas that overlap multiple countries
• List of twin towns and sister cities
• Global city
• Ecumenopolis
• Metropolis
• Megalopolis