Have you ever heard of sister cities, also known as twin towns? It’s a concept in which “two cities or towns in geographically and politically distinct areas are paired, with the goal of fostering human contact and cultural links”. Collaborations between the cities can take many shapes (for instance, exchange programs or commercial ties), but the goal is simply to unite the towns on a meaningful level.
Right after the Second World War for example, a lot of cities in the UK and Germany came together in this way, helping promote peace and reconciliation. Sounds like a good idea, right? We firmly believe that projects focused on cross-cultural bonds and dialogue make the world a better place, by helping people open their minds to different realities and points of view. This is what Postcrossing is all about as well, so in a way, connecting cities is a lot like connecting people… just on a different scale! 😊
This year, Düsseldorf is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its connections with three sister cities: Haifa (IL), Chemnitz (DE) and Reading (GB). Despite their differences, these three cities have been finding ways of collaborating and expanding their horizons together for the past 30 years. For instance, they’ve organised internships and student exchanges, sports events, donations to each other in times of need and even brought artists together to build this huge mural in Düsseldorf!
To celebrate this milestone, the city of Düsseldorf is partnering with Postcrossing to create an international postcard exhibition that will allow the world to join in on the celebrations. Nothing says “connections across borders” like postcards, so we believe this is the perfect medium to expand their jubilee to the entire world.
And this is where YOU come in! Düsseldorf kindly invites all postcrossers to take part on the postcard exhibition by sending in postcards with well-wishes and thoughts on sister cities. To participate, choose a postcard from your area and send it to:
(The address has been removed as exhibition is already taking place, so postcards are no longer needed.)
We encourage everyone to congratulate Düsseldorf, Haifa, Chemnitz and Reading on their triple jubilee and also to write about sister cities on your postcards! Is your city or town twinned with another one? What do you think of the concept? And do you have any good ideas for cooperations between sister cities?
And as a bonus, the nice people from Düsseldorf’s town hall have reserved 100 specially designed postcards to send out to 100 randomly chosen participants of the exhibition! For a chance to win one, just include your email address on the postcard you send. Don’t worry — your email addresses will be covered for the duration of the exhibition.
All postcards will be displayed on Café Europa (Marktplatz 6 a) from June 30th onwards, so you have until then to send in yours. And if you’re around, mark your calendar and send us photos! We’d love to see your beautiful postcards in all their shiny glory! 😍
PS – If you were the mayor of your town and could twin it with another one, which one would that be? And what would you suggest for your first cooperation? Let us know in the comments!
84 comments so far
Cities of the Post Crossing World, UNITE!!! Cheers.......
Great ideas about cities twinning...a great way to create closeness n understanding among the citizens of the various cities.....Cheers!!
Love this idea! :) I'll join for sure! :D
As an inhabitant of Reading, I'll definitely be getting involved! Unfortunately Reading is not a city in UK terms: it is one of the UK's largest towns but has not had city status conferred on it by the monarch (yet...).
lamballe FR and oia ES
@chrisbonham11 oh, that is interesting — I didn't know that!
Wow~
My gorgeous Toruń, Poland, is a Sister City of:
- Philadelphia, USA
- Göttingen, Germany
- Leiden, The Netherlands
- Hämeenlinna, Finland
- Kaliningrad, Russia
- Čadca, Slovakia
- Swindon, England
- Lutsk, Ukraine
- Novo Mesto, Slovenia
- Guilin, China
- Angers, France
- Kovno/Kaunas, Lithuania
I will be mailing them a postcard today!
FANTASTIC THIS IDEA ! GREETINGS FROM REES ON THE RHINE(GERMANY)
Oh yes - not very often that Düsseldorf is on the map of postcard lovers! As a "local" I will be sending a card and definitely visit the exhibit! Thanks for letting us know.
I just mailed them a postcard today from my city of Las Vegas, Nevada -- which I discovered has no sister cities : (
Essen is only about 20 km away from Düsseldorf and has quite a lot of sister cities:
Tampere in Finlad
Sunderland in the UK (since 1949!)
Grenoble in France
Tel Aviv in Israel
Nischni Nowgorod in Russia
Changzhou in China
Zabrze in Poland
What a wonderful event! Will try to visit it!
Whenever I send a postcrossing card into one of our twin cities, I will mention that "we" are twins, but sadly, most recipients had never heard of it.
Hopefully, this blog posting will get everyone motivated to look up "their twins".
Nice idea. Düsseldorf is our neighbouring city and probably I'll send a card from Neuss to our neighbours or a Haifa-card from my last IL-trip. Actually I thought about sending a card directly from Haifa, but I'll be there only from 1st July on. Damn. :(
@SylviaM If I was the mayor of Las Vegas, I would suggest a twinning with Macao! 🙃
I live in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago. Chicago has 26 sister cities, from Accra (Ghana) to Warsaw (Poland).
http://www.chicagosistercities.com/sister-cities/
My suburb's sister city is Nailuva, Fiji!!!! Oh, to receive a postcard from there would be awesome!
Thank you for this topic as I learned something new about my area! I also learned that Chicago is sister city to Toronto (Canada) where one of my good friends lives. (Yes, I told her about Postcrossing and she recently became a member).
Last year I had fun collecting at least one card from everyone of Genoa sister cities (Marseille in France, Columbus and Baltimore in US, Odessa in Ukraine, Chios in Greece, Rijeka in Croatia and the district of Beyoğlu in Istambul in Turkey). Some of them were old colonies of the maritime republic of Genoa during the Middle Ages or follow maritime ports :)
I just mailed my postcard! Scottsdale, Arizona is sister cities with 8 other cities which are:
(1) Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
(2) Interlaken, Switzerland
(3) Cairns, Queensland, Australia
(4) Kingston, Ontario, Canada
(5) Haikou, Hainan, China
(6) Marrakech, Morocco
(7) Uasin Gishu, Kenya
(8) Killarney, Ireland
This has inspired me to get involved with my city’s Sister City program! This is right up my alley, so to speak!
Thanks Anna!
I live in New Braunfels, TX and we are Sister Cities with Braunfels, DE. The Sister Cities agreement was signed in 2010, but there has been a partnership between our cities since 1925. More than 90 years!
Well, I am from São Paulo - Brazil, and there are... 42 Sister Cities. frankly? sounds too many for me... Probably due to the big heart of people.
I live in Alkmaar The Netherlands. Die Niederlande. I think it is an amazing idea to do this. Our twin cities are Bath GB, Troyes FR, Darmstadt DE, Tata HUNG, Bergama TUR. We have contact with eachother for cultural and sports events. Paul.
Galway city, Ireland is twinned with:
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Lorient, France
Seattle, Washington, USA
Bradford, England
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Aalborg, Denmark
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Menlo Park, California, USA
Galway City also has a number of Friendship Agreements with cities:
Qingdao, China
Auckland, New Zealand
Moncton, New Brunswick, Candada
Stirling, Scotland
Graz, Austria is twinned with:
Coventry, England
Darmstadt, Germany
Dubrovnic, Croatia
Pula, Croatia
Groningen, The Netherlands
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Maribor, Slovenia
Montclair, New Jersey/USA
Pècs, Hungary
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Timisoara, Romania
Trieste, Italy
Trondheim, Norway
and two of other form of cooperation and city friendship similar to the twin city programmes:
Nis, Serbia
Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegowina
I live in Ratingen (nearby + very close to Düsseldorf).
We have a lot of Sister Cities:
Maubeuge, France (since 1958)
Les Quesnoy, France (since 1963)
Cramlington, United Kingdom (from 1967 to 2016)
Vermillion, South Dakota/USA (since 1969)
Kokkola, Finland (since 1989)
Beelitz, Brandenburg/Germany (since 1990)
Gagarin, Russia (since 1998)
Wuxi, Province Jiangsu/China (since 2007)
There are also partnerships with
the Children-Tram "Lottchen" in Dresden, Germany, and
a plane of Lufthansa CityLine
Our second daughter Jula visited Vermillion + Cramlington with the Youth wind orchester of Ratingen. Two young female flautists from Kokkola were our welcome guests a few years ago.
Good idea.I will mail a card . Best wishes
I have'nt checked if we have a twin city ...but if i have the chance id pair Manila Philippines with Copenhagen or Amsterdam or Tokyo ... id love the idea of using bicycle as a mode of ' public transportation' ... less pollution and biking as a form of exercise !
Congrats on this postcrossing project! I wont be able to see this exhibit in person ...i hope you'll post some pics here.
Oh, that's a great idea! I will definitely send a postcard and some gifts. It would be nice to see some pictures from the exhibition and the town hall. I hope you'll post a photo. I run to the post office!
That's a great idea! I will send a postcard.
Palma de Mallorca, Spain is sister cities with:
-Santa Barbara, California, USA
-Alghero, Sardinia, Italy
-Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
-Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
-Portofino, Italy
-Xalapa-Enríquez, Veracruz, Mexico
Sintra, Portugal - not a city but a village (as Reading, UK) has several sisters
- El Jadida (Morocco)
- Brava, Vila Nova de Sintra (Cape Verde)
- Omura (Japan)
- Petrópolis (Brasil)
- Trindade (São Tomé e Príncipe)
- Lobito (Angola)
- Bissau (Guiné Bissau)
- Honolulu (Havai, USA)
- Namacha (Moçambique)
- Havana Velha (Cuba)
- Assilah (Morocco)
- Beira (Mozambique)
- Fontainebleau (France)
I will be mailing them a postcard today! Willing to participate
What a fantastic idea! Unfortunately my town does not have a
sister city, but Salt Lake City does have several:
Chernivtsi, Ukraline
Izhevsk, Russia
Keelung, Taiwan
Matsumoto, Japan
**Oruro, Bolivia
**Quezon, Phillippines
**Thurles, Ireland
Torino, Italy
Trujillo, Peru (Friendship City)
Thanks to your post, I was able to learn this information.
I will send a postcard straight away!
And ps: I see my dear friend, smeuldersdrawings, has already commented. Perhaps I can have my town's sister city be her town and add towns of all my Postcrossing friends!
Sending congratulations today from Bellevue, Washington USA, sister city to:
Hualien, Taiwan 🇹🇼
Yao, Japan 🇯🇵
Kladno, Czechia 🇨🇿
Liepāja, Latvia 🇱🇻
My card is in the mail! The sister cities to mine (Norfolk, VA) are Kitakyushu, Japan-Kaliningrad, Russia-Tema, Ghana-Toulon, France-Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada-Kochi, India-Cagayen, Philiippines, Wilhelmshaven, Germany-Norfolk County, UK and Ningbo-Beilum, China. I was surprised to find that we had 10!
I live in Lubbock, Texas. According to Wikipedia, Lubbock is presently a sister city to Musashino, Tokyo, Japan, used to be a sister city to Leon, Mexico and proposed sister cities include Can Tho, Vietnam, Ulsan, South Korea or Ciudad Acuna, Mexico.
If I were Mayor of Lubbock, and could pick a sister city in the United States, I would pick a city that is the total opposite of us. Like Boston. From what I understand, Boston is liberal, whereas Lubbock is totally conservative. Lubbock was voted the second most conservative area in the United States in a survey (Salt Lake City came in first.)
Reading is my hometown so I will definitely send a postcard in celebration!
Interesting/ In the times of the USSR we had a city or a town brother. My native town Petrozavodsk had a brother in France - La Rochelle (if I am not mistaken in the spelling) It was very popular, I think there is still a cultural connection between them. It is a very good thing for people, it makes our world more friendly, more reasonable and safe.
My hometown Steinhagen is twinned with Wourden in The Netherlands and Fivizzano in Italy. Every year there is a guided day trip to Wourden for our citizens. Unfortunately Fivizzano is too far away for a day trip!
@ChimeBelle You totally should! Tell them what you think of their collaborations with other cities, or let them know a city you'd like Düsseldorf to be twinned with! :)
Springfield, Illinois, US has four sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, they include the following places:
Villach, Austria
Killarney, Ireland
San Pedro, Mexico
Ashikaga, Japan
My postcard is in the mail !!!
I like this idea. I am very sympathetic to such initiatives. And my postcard is already on the way!
The twin cities of Chita:
Choibolsan - Mongolia;
Manchuria - China;
Ulan-Ude - Russia;
Hailar - China.
Yverdon-les-Bains (my town) has sister towns :
- Nogent-sur-Marne (France)
- Winterthur (Switzerland)
- Prokuplje (Serbia)
- Collesano (Italy)
- Kagamino (Japan)
- Pontarlier (France)
And even :
- Gotham City (USA)
@meiadeleite I think Macao would be a great twin to Las Vegas. Come be our mayor!
@meiadeleite
Fingers crossed.hope to win... Can the winners please have a post with all the postcard pictures won ? in case we don't win at least we can see the beautiful postcards!
Happy postcrossing!! :D
So meaningful!!
I will mail a postcard!
:)
Helo from Celje, which is twinned with:
Germany Grevenbroich, Germany, since 1986
Germany Singen, Germany, since 1990
Croatia Slavonski Brod, Croatia, since 2010
Bosnia and Herzegovina Doboj, Bosnia and Hercegovina, since 1965
Celje has friendship agreements with:
Montenegro Budva, Montenegro
Russia Cherepovets, Russia
Serbia Ćuprija, Serbia
Austria Graz, Austria
Austria Spittal an der Drau, Austria
What a great event. I have already prepared a postcard to send them.
Partner cities of Berlin:
Los Angeles since June 27th 1967
Paris since July 2nd 1987
Madrid since November 4th 1988
Istanbul since November 17th 1989
Warsaw since August 12th 1991
Moscow since August 28th 1991
Brussels since June 1st 1992
Budapest since August 28th 1992
Tashkent since April 30th 1993
Mexico City since September 1st 1993
Peking since April 5th 1994
Jakarta since April 13th 1994
Tokyo since May 14th 1994
Buenos Aires since May 19th 1994
Prague since June 10th 1995
Windhoek since July 6th 2000
London since October 10th 2000
I have heard of twin cities in other states, in the US, but I have never heard of cities that are in different countries. :-)
I sent my postcard yesterday. I am also going to contact my Chamber of Commerce to find out more about my suburb's sister city as there is no information available. Hopefully I can get somewhere with this!
Thank you for sharing this, it's a wonderful idea!
My postcard will start its journey tomorrow. (^_^)
The sister cities of 's-Hertogenbosch are: Trier (the oldest city in Germany) since 1968; and Leuven (BE) since 1185 when Duke Henry I of Brabant granted 's-Hertogenbosch city rights.
And another card from the Netherlands is on its way to Düsseldorf.
Wish I could visit the exhibition.
Wow thanx a lot for sharing and participating in this project and jubilee! I'll certainly take part sending some town view postcard..))
The theme of twinned towns is very close to me) i am collecting due to direct swapping the greeting cards from places twinned to my town Baranovichi, Belarus. There are 23 town friends! I have got the cards from Heinola, Finland) Gdynia, Poland) Stockerau, Austria) and travelling from Karlovo, Bulgaria) Ferrara, Italy) Biala Podlaska, Poland)...
There are Heinola Boulevard and Stockerau Boulevard in my town..
I love the idea, to send my card to Dusseldorf for this great exhibition.
I live in Victoria, BC Canada, the capital city British Columbia.
The city Victoria is "Twin" with;
- Napier, New Zealand,
- Suzhou, China,
- Morioka, Japan,
- Khabarovsk, Russia.
and has "Friendship" with;
- Nanning, China,
- Changsha, China.
I have sent my card for congratulation! Hope it can arrive safely(⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎)
Of course I will send a postcard to the city where I was born! <3
I would like to participate in this event! I'll start my search for an appropriate postcard showing my locale. (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada). How can we find out if our town already has a sister-city? I'd welcome any one who wants a 'twin'. :)
If I were the mayor, I would choose to twin my city to a place in Canada.
Just a few kilometres away from Düsseldorf, my hometown of Wuppertal is twin cities with
South Tyneside, England (since 1951)
St. Etienne, France (since 1960)
Berlin Tempelhof-Schönefeld, Germany (since 1964)
Beer Sheva, Israel (since 1977)
Kosice, Slovakia (since 1980)
Schwerin, Germany (since 1987)
Matagalpa, Nicaragua (since 1987)
Legnica, Poland (since 1993)
and also has friendly ties with
Tabarka, Tunisia
Jekaterinburg and Engels, Russia
Qingdao and Xinxiang, China
Back in high school I once took part in a student exchange with Legnica, which was a great fun really interesting! :o)
My hometown Magdeburg has these sister cities:
Sarajevo, Croatia 🇭🇷
Brunswick, Germany 🇩🇪
Nashville TN, United States 🇺🇸
Saporoshje, Ukraine🇺🇦
Radom, Poland 🇵🇱
Harbin, China 🇨🇳
Le Havre, France 🇫🇷
My hometown, Leverkusen, has 9 sister cities:
- Oulu in Finland (we have an Oulu Lake and an Oulu Street)
- Bracknell Forest in England
- Ljubljana in Slovenia
- Nazrat-Illit in Israel
- Chinandega in Nicaragua
- Schwedt in Germany (these German-German partnerships are remains from when there were two German states)
- Villeneuve d’Ascq in France
- Racibórz in Poland
- Wuxi in China
I have exchanged postcrossing cards with Oulu (both ways several times), Ljubljana (both ways) and Wuxi (both ways). It would be totally cool to send to or receive from all of them one day, but as some are rather small (not unlike my own town ;-)), it would be quite a big coincidence.
I will be mailing a postcard, I looked and can not find a sister city to St. Charles, IL I need to contact someone to find out for sure.
Sending a postcard your way! I think this is wonderful that you all show unity with one another. My town does not have a sister city but it should! Congratulations to you all. I hope my postcard makes it to you all quickly!
I'm currently living in Dinan, France which is twinned with:
Dinant, Belgium and Exmouth, UK
My town Den Helder is twinned with German Lüdenscheid. I've just sent a mail to the council because we never hear anything about it! I had to search the internet to find out we actually had a twinsister city.
Here's a postcard celebrating the event: https://www.postcrossing.com/postcards/DE-6608745
Just wrote a postcard, congrats!
My hometown Lucca (Italy) has got 5 sister cities: Abingdon (UK), Colmar (France), Sint Niklaas (Belgium), Schoungau (Germany) and South San Francisco (USA).
I'll send a card tomorrow, nice project! :)
My hometown Bad Pyrmont celebrates this year it's 60th anniversary with Anzio (Italy). It's a very active partnership with annually youth exchanges and collaborations.
Furthermore we are twinned with Heemstede (Netherlands) since 2000 and with Bad Freienwalde (Germany) since 1990.
Congratulations to you all, my postcard is en route.
I visit Düsseldorf each November for Medica and stay at Hotel alt Düsseldorf in the Altstadt each year. I can’t wait to go this year and check out all the postcards in the town hall :-)
Bethlehem Pennsylvania has 4 sister cities ...
Corfu, Greece
Tondabayashi Ashi, Osaka Japan
Murska Sobota, Slovenia
Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany
One of my selfmade designs for postcards of my hometown Frankenthal include the roadsign with our partnercitys
Colombes, Strausberg and Sopot. I send one of it to Düsseldorf :-)
\\//_ mene sakkhet ur-seveh
I live in the London suburb of Barnet. Twin towns/sister cities:
Barnet, Vermont, USA
Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
Jinja, Uganda
Le Raincy, Seine-Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, France
Montclair Township, Essex County, New Jersey, USA
Morphou, Cyprus
Ramat Gan, Israel
Siegen-Wittgenstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin, Germany
Dear Postcrossers,
warm greetings from Düsseldorf. My name is Sonja (I am a fairly new postcrosser) and the person you wrote all your postcards to :)
It has (only) been 14 days since this project started and we already received 180 postcrads!!! This is truly amazing. Thank you.
Some of the postcards reached us from our neighbours, such as Ratingen or Köln and some came from far away (Arizona, Singapore, Australia). We are truly touched by all the sweet greetings and thoughts about sister cities - THANK YOU - and keep'em coming ;D
Awesome! I'll send out a postcard on Monday. Cheers!
Great idea & #Congrats for the 30th anniversary dear towns Düsseldorf & Haifa & Chemnitz & Reading!
My town Brasov has 16 sister cities:
• Tampere, Finland[20]
• Tours, France
• Győr, Hungary
• Rishon LeZion, Israel
• Holstebro, Denmark
• Musashino, Japan
• Kroonstad, South Africa
• Ghent, Belgium
• Leeds, United Kingdom
• Minsk, Belarus
• Trikala, Greece
• Venaria Reale, Italy
• Cleveland, United States[21]
• Nuremberg, Germany
• Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan
• Linz, Austria[22]
What a great idea
These are the sister towns/cities of my city.
Newport, Rhode Island has "twinned" with six similar sister cities from around the globe.
Skiathos, Greece.
Kinsale, Ireland.
Imperia, Italy.
Shimoda, Japan.
Saint John, New Brunswick,…
Ponta Delgada, Azores,…
Just wrote mine to send. I am from Midland Michigan and our Sister City is the City of Handa, Japan. Love this idea.
Will send one soon! My closest city is twinned with 3 other countries in Germany and France. :)
Great idea. I'm from Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Our twin cities are
Blantyre (Malawi),
Bristol (England),
Hiroshima (Japan),
Leipzig (Deutschland),
Poznan (Polen),
Perpignan (Südfrankreich),
Rouen (Nordfrankreich).
Rgs
Beate
Sending out my postcard to Dusseldorf today! This is the card I am sending them: https://www.postcrossing.com/postcards/US-5237761
I'm from Düsseldorf and will visit the Exhibition and do some Photos!
Congratulations! Postcard is being sent from Maryland, USA!
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