This article is about the general concept. For town governments establishing official links, see Sister city. For the area typically called the "Twin Cities" in the United States, see Minneapolis–Saint Paul. For other uses, see Twin city.
High-rise buildings in Minneapolis's Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, with the Downtown Saint Paul skyline visible in the background ten miles away. Minneapolis' city limits border those of Saint Paul, the capital of Minnesota. This gave birth to the nickname of the region, the "Twin Cities" metropolitan area.A view of the town of Tornio (Finland), which forms a twin city with Haparanda (Sweden)
Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in status and size, though not necessarily equal; a city and a substantially smaller suburb would not typically qualify, even if they were once separate. Tri-cities and quad cities are similar phenomena involving three or four municipalities.
A common – but not universal – scenario is two cities that developed concurrently on opposite sides of a river. For example, Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota – one of the most widely known pairs of "Twin Cities" – were founded several miles apart on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, and competed for prominence as they grew.
In some cases twin cities eventually merge into a single legal municipality, such as Buda and Pest merging in 1873 into Budapest, Hungary; Brooklyn being annexed by New York City in 1898; or the three ancient cities of Hankou, Hanyang, and Wuchang joining in 1927 into Wuhan.
Rome and Vatican City. Vatican City is the only sovereign state surrounded entirely by a single city, Rome. The Vatican is an area in Rome. It was part of Italy until 1929, when Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty.
The Florence-Muscle Shoals Metropolitan Area in Alabama, is locally referred to as "the Quad Cities", with Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia, Alabama. Formerly, when Muscle Shoals was a mere village, this region was known as "Tri-Cities", Alabama. In fact, all except Florence are incorporated as towns.
Fukuoka in Japan, a city of 1.4 million people, formerly the twin cities of Hakata and Fukuoka until the late 19th century.
Kitakyushu in Japan, a city of 900,000 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.
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.
Pakistan
Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, has been expanded to include smaller towns including Rawat in its territory.
Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, has, as of 2013, grown out so much that small towns by this giant city, such as Shahdara, have been absorbed in its city limits.
Taiwan
The former cities of Taoyuan and Zhongli, Taiwan, which merged along with the entire county in 2014 to form a single municipality city of Taoyuan, the two cities sit directly next to each other and shares almost the same population.
Thailand
Bangkok, the capital and largest city of Thailand, was created in 1971, when the previous Bangkok province (Phra Nakhon) was merged with Thonburi province.
Vietnam
The cities of Saigon and Cholon merged in 1931 to form a single city named Saigon-Cholon; in 1956, the name Cholon was dropped and the city became known as Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
The city of Hà Đông, capital of Hà Tây Province was merged into Hà Nội upon the latter's amalgamation into Hà Nội in August 2008. Since then, Hà Đông became an urban district (quận) of Hà Nội.
Eindhoven, the Netherlands, merged with five neighbouring municipalities (Woensel, Tongelre, Stratum, Gestel en Blaarthem and Strijp) into the new Groot-Eindhoven ("Greater Eindhoven") in 1920. The prefix "Groot-" was later dropped.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was merged with the other 27 communities on the Island of Montreal by an act in the Quebec Parliament in 2002. Following a change in the provincial government, several communities later voted via referendum to de-merge and there are now a total of 15, leaving Montreal merged with the other 12.
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.
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.
Boston, Massachusetts is made up of the former towns of Boston, Dorchester, Brighton, Roxbury, Charlestown, and Hyde Park.
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 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.
Park Hills, Missouri was formed in 1994 by a four-way municipal merger involving the cities of Flat River, Elvins, and Esther, plus the village of Rivermines.
Jersey City, New Jersey, was incorporated in 1820, and slowly grew by annexing surrounding municipalities: Van Vorst Twp. (1851), Bergen City (1869), Hudson City (1869), Bergen Twp. (1869) and finally Greenville Twp. (1873).
New York City, New York (five boroughs, historically especially between Manhattan and Brooklyn)
What is now the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina was once two separate towns called Winston and Salem that were combined into one.[n 26]
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.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which absorbed the cities of South Bethlehem, and West Bethlehem. The former Bethlehem and South Bethlehem are situated in Northampton County, and West Bethlehem is in Lehigh County. As a result, present-day Bethlehem straddles the county line.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 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".
Besźel and Ul Qoma in China Miéville's novel The City & the City are intertwined twin city-states in Eastern Europe whose inhabitants have trained themselves to only see the city they live in and unsee the city they don't.
^Separated by the North Saskatchewan River. While the communities are commonly referred to by the collective "The Battlefords," they retain distinctive identities.
^The cities meet at the border between Texas and Arkansas, and their name is a portmanteau of those states' names as well as that of Louisiana, whose border lies approximately 25 miles to the south. See Texarkana metropolitan area and Ark-La-Tex.
^The cities are connected by two twin cantilever bridges which merge the two cities together as sister cities. The cities meet on the Mississippi and Louisiana state border and along the Mississippi River adjacent to each other. They both share long history together. Natchez, Mississippi is also a historical part of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, to which Vidalia is the seat of Concordia Parish. See Natchez–Vidalia Bridge, Concordia Parish and Adams County, Mississippi.
