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Old unsorted text

(From a chamber of commerce article on Twin Towns; rewrite and/or paraphrase)

Local Government: Promotes democratic local government world wide.

Transnational projects and exchanges: Assists professional development by widening experience. Gives the opportunity to reflect on current practice and gain new ideas and expertise through exchange of experience and joint working.

Educational activities and exchange of young people: Promotes young people as confident global citizens who can fit in anywhere in the world, and who have the skills to work with people from different parts of the world. Gives direct contact with another culture. Provides real life context for foreign language learning. Promotes friendship across national boundaries. Develops greater awareness and objectivity about your own culture. Leads to increased self confidence. Promotes greater understanding and tolerance. Increases confidence and motivation to travel to other countries. Provides a focus for teaching in languages and other curriculum areas.

Isn't the term "twin towns" or "twin cities" often used for two similarly-sized cities seperated by some natural or artificial border (like a state boundary or river) that are sufficiently close together to be considered one community? --Robert Merkel

Yep, that's Twin Cities from which this article originated.

I believe Twin Towns is the more common international usage - Sister Cities is the US name for it. --justfred

Twin towns is a European initiative and is separate from this - hence new article Twin towns btljs

On the other hand, asserting that it is a purely European term belies the world-wide nature of the scheme - there are now European towns which have twins all over the world. Perhaps a better comparison of the two terms should be made somewhere, and possibly the list of twinnings (currently at Twin towns, but may be split off to List of twin towns shortly) should include sister cities as well, since they seem a very similar concept - in which case, maybe it should be at List of twin towns and sister cities? Or are there sufficient differences in concept to warrant development of a separate List of sister cities? - IMSoP 17:34, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) (see also proposal at Talk:Twin towns#Refactoring this and related pages)

Merged

Just a quick note to say that I have now merged this page with Town twinning, which is the information bit of what used to be Twin towns (the list part is now List of twin towns and sister cities). See Talk:Town twinning for a more complete (or possibly just more confusing) explanation of what I did. - IMSoP 21:58, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sister City vs Twin Town

Hi, I work in a UK local authority and there is a difference (at least in the UK) between a Twin Town and a Sister City. A Sister City is where there is a link between local authorities in two similar cities (similarities may or may not include ports, an airport, industrys, size etc). A twinned town is normally organised by an independant society (normally ex-pats or 'philes i.e. Franco-philes etc) normally with the endorsement of the local authority but very often receiving no funding from them.

If someone with more eloquence than myself could update the article, at least a small section within the Europe bit that would be cool. As it stands I think it is a little confusing. IOwnTheLetterO (talk) 16:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Town twinning vs Twin cities

I put the "merge" label lackig a better one.

A clear cut must be done between the two notions. Let us face it: "twin cities" requires a normal disambiguation, rather than tweaking with article names. I am pretty sure that 80% of links to Twin cities must in fact go to "Twin towning".

A significant part of "Twin cities" must be moved to "town twinning", including a part of the list. Mikkalai 02:04, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I doubt it, Twin Cities are adjacent to each other, Town twinning or sister cities, are geographically very far apart. dml 03:16, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
These two pages should stay separate; they discuss two different concepts. As far as I can tell, the list at Twin cities should not be moved to this page. Mikkalai may be right that 80% of the links to Twin cities should go to Town twinning instead; I haven't checked. In that case, maybe the article Twin cities should be moved to another title, and that Twin cities should be a disambiguation page or a redirect to Town twinnning. I don't know. But no merge. I've removed the merge notices from the pages; the notice that was there before was much more helpful. Eugene van der Pijll 13:04, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry guys for the confusion. It was late at night, and I was not thinking clearly. I was wrong about 80% as well. May be 4%; e.g., Nyíregyháza, Uzhhorod.

Well, to my surpise, I was almost right after all. Mikkalai 07:23, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

But still, I urge the English language speakers to check whether there really is an ambiguity in the usage of the term twin city/twin town, as my examples of Nyíregyháza & Uzhhorod suggest. If yes, then twin city/twin town must be turned into disambigs.

By the way, Twin (disambiguation) must be updated in any case. Thank you. Mikkalai 18:42, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

European Union

There are completely separate words for these EU assocotians versus our Town twinning. I'll leave it for someone else to split the page, but here is some inter-wiki words to use de:Douzelage, fr:Ville_jumille, it:Jumelage, es:Jumelée or something like hermanadeg. Schlüggell | Talk 19:55, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think you'll have to clarify your comment, because I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that some languages (other than English) have different terms for town twinning within the EU and outside it? Are you saying that this page overlooks a distinction in English? Or, if neither of those is what you meant, what exactly do you mean by the respective phrases "these EU associations" and "our Town twinning"? In short, what is the split which you think is necessary?
[As for interwikis, there are some real lost chances for collaboration here - particularly w.r.t. List of twin towns and sister cities, but also, in the other direction, I see de:Städtepartnerschaft seems to have more info than we do here.] - IMSoP 18:35, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Douzelage is a specific "twinning" (not really the right word since there were 12 partners, now more) project - see douzelage.org. Rd232 22:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Note: the above was changed by a non-logged in user to the following (I've crossed out the signature to clarify that this is not the original comment). If this was you changing your own comment, Rd232, fair enough (though slightly confusing); if not, it's a little odd - changing a comment signed by somebody else is like trying to change what they said. If you just meant to add to it, you should indicate that you are doing so somehow. - IMSoP 14:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Douzelage is a very specific "twinning" project. Its name is composed by the french word for twinning: "Jumelage" and the 12 (french: douze) partner towns at the moment when it was founded in 1991. Today the Douzelage has 20 member towns) - see douzelage.org. Rd232 22:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Contradiction

Isn't the phrase "...a comprehensive, though incomplete, list of..." a contradiction?

Yes. Changed to 'substantial'.

And here's another:

The very first official town twinning arrangement in the world was established in 1930 between the German city of Wiesbaden and the Austrian city of Klagenfurt. The practice of town twinning was developed in Europe after the Second World War as a way to bring European people into a closer understanding of each other and to promote cross-border projects of mutual benefit.

I don't know the history, but one of those has to be right, and the other wrong. Is the word "developed" used here to mean "further developed"?

US-Russia

Text dump, to be processed. Please remove when done.

  • Eugene, OR & Irkutsk
  • Flagstaff, AZ & Barnaul
  • Jacksonville, FL Murmansk
  • La Crosse, WI & Dubna
  • Lansing, MI & Kuybushevsky District, St. Petersburg
  • Louisville, KY & Perm
  • Oakland, CA & Nakhodka
  • Philadelphia, PA & Nizhny Novgorod
  • Richmond, IN & Serpukhov
  • State of Maryland & Leningrad Oblast/City of St. Petersburg

mikka (t) 03:26, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Sister Cities: List or Paragraph...???

User:Derek.cashman wants to change, and thinks, that all “Sister cities” lists in articles should be converted/changed to “paragraph” form. I don’t want to. Can you imagine a lists of 26 sister cities, like for Istanbul, and trying to read it in paragraph form? Please read my opinion and vote. WikiDon 04:15, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Politically Correct

If we have to start using Mailperson and Policeperson and fisherperson, it should be person-city. As a male, i am outright offended by this display of pure sexism and gender oriented discrimination. I move that this article and all of its contents either be changed to be more gender nuetral, or deleted in its entirety.--Gephart 06:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If this is not a joke, I apologise for laughing when I read it; if it is, I apologise for taking it so seriously in the following sentences ;). If you are serious, the word you are looking for (meaning "either brother or sister") is "sibling", and therefore "sibling cities"; of course, "twin towns" is already gender neutral, and is the term used in large portions of the world. What's more, Wikipedia has a policy of No Original Research - we're here to report what is already true, not to propogate new ideas. Consequently, it would only be acceptable to change the page if a substantial or influential group of people (e.g. large numbers of Americans, or Sister Cities International) began using or advocating such a usage. - IMSoP 13:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Excuse me, but I consider crossing out my entire comment to be extremely rude, especially given that you gave no explanation, not even an edit summary. I'm sorry if you found my response unacceptable in some way, I wasn't trying to be confrontational, just to give a balanced response to your suggestion. Or maybe you meant to retract your statement (which makes more sense than retracting someone else's)? Either way, perhaps you could say what you think of the points I made. - IMSoP 16:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't fight! Sister can also mean brother and brother can also mean sister!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.240.234.204 (talk)
To be clear: Both brother and sister suck! Why? Because people are nothing, compared to animals!—Preceding unsigned comment added by LuckyAfterAll (talk • contribs)
Neither of these comments seems clear to me. --BigChicken 11:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Standardization of term and form on city pages

There seems to be no standard form for the section of the pages of cities with twinned cities. Therefore, I propose the standard usage of "Twinned Cities" on the sections dealing with them, with a link to "Town twinning" in the title of the section.

This seems a noble idea (though whether this is the best place to mention it, I'm not sure; a Wikipedia:WikiProject might be better), but note that section headings don't generally have Multiple Caps, so "Twinned cities" would be more in keeping with general style. Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of links inside headings - they can sometimes look somewhat ugly, and definitely confusing; better to just say "<name_of_town> is [[Town twinning|twinned]] with...". This is assuming I've understood you right of course, which may not be the case... - IMSoP 18:50, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This page confuses some people...

As to what exactly a twin city/sister city is, and it's purpose. Better explanation please? What do sister cities do?

I don't get it.

I don't understand this at all.

The twinning concept? You're not alone - a common belief in the UK about local government corruption is that the main reason for towns entering twinning arrangements is so that councillors can go on holidays to said twin town on council expenses. Timrollpickering 13:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
To be honest, I also have no idea what the benefits are of this habit. Andries (talk) 17:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
A cynic would say it's a chance for town councillors to get free trips (away from their wives?) 82.69.90.226 (talk) 18:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Correction

The article mistakenly attributed the first european twon twinning as being between a german and an autrian town in 1930 whereas my home town of Keighley, in West Yorkshire, Northern England was twinned with the French town of Poix du Nord in 1920. I don't know how to add citations but here are a couple of links http://www.sedbergh.org.uk/twinning/history/eu.html#a1 http://www.bradford.gov.uk/life_in_the_community/twin_towns_and_villages/ . As i understand it this was the first official twinning in the world not just in Europe.

Better Description

I was searching this article in search of some information, but I didn't get a single answer I was looking for. You really need a better description of town twinning.

Loghead1 18:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

When...????

When did Coventry, UK twinned with Stalingrad, Russia??? It has been said that these were ever (and I think officially) the first to twin themselves... (See the Europe section of the article) -Pika ten10 (talk) 07:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Logical Impossibility

Am I really the only one to spot the flaw with this sentence: "Coventry, United Kingdom was the first ever city to "twin" with another city (Stalingrad, Soviet Union)"? How can ONE city be the first ever to twin? Surely you need TWO citites to twin, therefore there must have been two that twinned at the same time ... ? --Stenun (talk) 00:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Could they possibly mean Stalingrad? Derp.

What is the purpose...

..of town twinning? I don't understand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.37.54.143 (talk) 21:25, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Its like walking up to a person and saying "lets be friends". Twinned towns share culture, as well as tourist destinations. The two towns usually have something in common before they are twinned, like a similar sized population - for example.(124.197.36.69 (talk) 04:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC))
Are we sure this isn't just a gimmick for Sister Cities International to make money?! This whole "sister cities" thing just seems to clutter the wikipedia pages for cities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.96.237.92 (talk) 16:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Coventry

I see from two previous comments that I am not the first person to raise questions about the claim that "the first ever" instance of town twinning was supposedly between Coventry and Stalingrad. When I read that statement I immediately wondered if it was true -- both with respect to being "the first ever", and with respect to Coventry being twinned with Stalingrad. Especially in light of the later statement that Coventry twinned with Dresden -- both of which were devastated by aerial bombardment during WW2 -- the assertion re Stalingrad needs verification. Cgingold (talk) 13:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Needs a concrete description

We've got a nebulous description of some sort of vague general concept, and then a bunch of examples that leave you thinking "wait - did I miss something?"

There is all this talk of which cities first did this in the modern, official sense, but no explanation of what on earth that entails. Are there certain typical economic arrangements? Do they trade academics? Is it a political thing? If it is, howso? From this article, it's anybody's guess.

We need the little overview, then a section describing the details ("Modern sister cities typically do this, this, this and this, with such and such goal, etc"). THEN all the examples.
98.25.41.99 (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

It's vague because honestly, no one really knows what the heck a sister city is. In fact, if it weren't for Wikipedia triviaphiles, no one would even have known the term "sister city." That's right, mentioning "sister city" is just another weaselly form of the now-deprecated trivia section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.72.226 (talk) 04:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Sign in picture

One of the signs in the picture says Middelfart — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.112.47.162 (talk) 14:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

US oldest towns

" Liberal, Kansas was twinned with Olney, Buckinghamshire in 1950"

I was reading the Denver page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_cities_of_Denver,_Colorado and it says

"Brest, France is Denver's oldest sister city. In addition, it is the U.S.'s second-oldest." (Date given is 1948)

Can't identify the oldest sister city in the US. 98.127.119.21 (talk) 01:35, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

General Neutrality (Political Section)

The political section needs some serious neutrality TLC. Either it needs more variety in the subject of Politics in Twin Cities, or the section should be removed. The previously Anti-Gay section, starting with the title and moving through many of the references used, was quite far from neutral. I went through and cleaned up it up a little, but still need some neutral references for the edits made.

I left the body as is, since it was generally neutral.

The language, though, is clearly biased (Violation/Anti-Gay/anti-homosexuality) These words should be replaced with more neutral terms, or in lieu of no neutral stance possible, the sentences should be removed. I did not want to do these edits without first opening a discussion on how to best achieve neutrality on this section.

The overall neutrality of this entry is stellar, but the Political section needs scrutiny. NinjaQuick (talk) 14:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Twin towns and sister cities

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Twin towns and sister cities's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Press release":

  • From Sutton twin towns mural: "Revealing Sutton's twinning heritage 06.06.11: A set of murals celebrating Sutton's links with its continental twin towns is to be given a new lease of life" (Press release). London Borough of Sutton press office. 6 June 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
  • From Sutton, London: "London Borough of Sutton press office".

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 11:11, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. A P Monblat (talk) 12:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Dull & Boring

Is Dull really paired with Boring, or is that just a joke someone put there? 201.170.54.123 (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC) James, Tijuana

I'm bored and I want to make some sort of contribution

So, I know this gallery is already overcrowded, but I want to add an image so I don't feel useless. I was wondering if I should go to my town's centre to snap a photo of our sister city signs. What permissions would I need? Would I need to do a bunch of fancy sourcing or whatever? Or can I just add photos if I took them and be done with it?Widgetdog (talk) 19:21, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Actual Consequences

This article seems to have a pretty comprehensive history of town twinning or sister city agreements but doesn't explain what they actually are. I.e. do such agreements actually do anything (legally) other than name each other sister/twin cities? From what I can gather here it isn't clear whether there is anything beyond this recognition involved. For an example what I"m thinking of is that maybe some of the agreements include provisions for lower taxes, support for businesses from the twin/sister city, etc. Could someone with knowledge perhaps address this question (I came here wondering "what do sister cities do apart from put up a useless sign?" and am none the wiser now). Perhaps some examples of clauses from an actual agreement would be useful. 124.171.130.103 (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It's two years later and there is still no explanation of what town twinning actually is and if it means anything other than some local officials saying 'ok now we're twinned'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.169.120.67 (talk) 01:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Mislabeled duplicate

The Gallery has two copies of File:Welcome to Glastonbury - geograph.org.uk - 1114993.jpg. The first one, though, is incorrectly captioned "Twin town monument in Antony, Matagalpa, Charlottenburg". (It said "memorial", but it's not in memory of anyone or anything, so I changed it.) I've commented it out till I can find the right photo. -- Thnidu (talk) 15:05, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

"For the film, see Sister Cities (film)."

Is it not more likely that those who typed in 'twin town' looking for "the film" would be searching for Twin Town? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:0:1003:1004:F110:796B:1139:C937 (talk) 17:43, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 2 June 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved as clear consensus has been established. (non-admin closure) — Music1201 talk 21:25, 10 June 2017 (UTC)


Twin towns and sister cities → Sister city – WP:SINGULAR and simplicity. The current title seems to consist of the plural forms of two terms that mean roughly the same thing. A "twin town" seems to be basically the same thing as a "sister city", so the current title is redundant and unnecessarily wordy. This is not a term that is encountered only in the plural – it is very common to say that "X is a sister city of Y", and the Sibling and Twin articles have singular titles. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

This renaming seems to have gone ahead with very little discussion. 'Sister city' is an American term largely unused elsewhere. 'Twin town' is the terminology used in most of the world. The previous title was clunky, but renaming to an American regional term without discussion was unwarranted, especially as the article is written in British English. --Ef80 (talk) 14:17, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Would it perhaps be better to return to "Twin towns and sister cities" to include both? I know it's repetitive, but this change seems to have been decided by two Americans, so they might have been unaware. It is also listed as "Twin towns and sister cities" (or "Twin towns – sister cities") on most individual wiki articles, anyways. – Ynneblack (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Subpages

There's an absolute ton of subpages that need to be moved. Is there any sane automated way to do it? SnowFire (talk) 21:57, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand the comment. Can you give some examples? Has the problem been fixed? —BarrelProof (talk) 17:44, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
@BarrelProof: No, the problem has not been fixed. There's a huge walled garden of subpages at Lists of twin towns and sister cities and in this very article. I moved List of sister cities in Europe manually but didn't want to spend half an hour moving all of them when they all might just get moved back. SnowFire (talk) 16:21, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

How do two cities become twin cities?

I was looking for the answer to that question here but couldn't find it, to me it seems basic info that should go into this article 141.134.100.40 (talk) 13:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I think all that is necessary is for the two cities to issue some declaration that they are twin cities. As far as I know, there isn't any official governance of what it entails. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:46, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Problem in developing proper understanding of the topic

I have come across the concept of twin/sister cities just recently. I came to Wikipedia for in depth knowledge, but failed to achieve any. Why do cities twin with others? who are the authorities responsible for this? What is the benefit of this entire twinning? How is it possible that New York is there in sister cities of Lahore (Pakistan) on this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_twin_towns_and_sister_cities_in_Pakistan

BUT Lahore (Pakistan) is not there in sister cities list of New york, on this page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sister_cities_in_New_York

Someone please help me on this subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.59.70.139 (talk) 10:26, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

America first

This article seems very America-centered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 17:05, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Sister Cities (film) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

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