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'Twin cities' are a special case of two cities or urban centres which are born in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time. The term ''Twin Cities'' is used in the United States often to refer to the cities Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Cities twinned geographically do not necessarily match demographically, economically, or politically.

In the normal course of things, cities which grow into each other's space in this way lose their individual identity and whatever border or barrier still separates them becomes irrelevant until they fuse into one new city. The most famous example of this must be 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. But 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 code are integrated the initials of both cities; DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) and MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul) are well-known examples.

Contents

Examples

Examples of twin cities

Examples of fictional twin cities

Examples of cities formed by merging

Resistance to merging

Notes

See also

Examples

Examples of twin cities

★ The capital of the medieval Khazar Empire, Atil-Khazaran, which was situated on the western and eastern banks of the Volga River, respectively.

★ Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, Canada, on the north bank, and Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, United States, on the south bank, which are separated by the Saint Mary's River which marks the Canada-U.S. border at Lake Huron and Lake Superior.

★ Kitchener and Waterloo (Ontario) (occasionally mentioned with nearby Cambridge, Ontario), popularly abbreviated as "Kitchener-Waterloo" or "K-W"

★ Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan

★ Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin are twin cities, and are often referred to as the "Twin Ports."

★ Rivera, Uruguay and Santana do Livramento, Brazil.

★ Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, roughly on the banks of the Mississippi River in the USA form the core of the region typically called "The Metro Area".

★ Leominster, Massachusetts and Fitchburg, Massachusetts

★ The Dallas–Fort Worth area is also known for its 'twin cities'.

★ Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's federal capital, and Gatineau, Quebec are twin cities and both of them (together with the surrounding area) constitute the National Capital Region of Canada, although Ottawa is much larger in population.

★ Barrie, Ontario and Orillia, Ontario (close proximity to each other)

★ Ingersoll, Ontario and Tillsonburg, Ontario (close proximity to each other)

★ Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York

★ Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York

★ Townsville and Thuringowa (Australia)

★ Albury and Wodonga on the New South Wales/Victoria border (Australia). They formed as customs posts when the two states were independent colonies.

★ Coolangatta and Tweed Heads on the Queensland/New South Wales border (Australia)

★ Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas

★ Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, U.S. exemplify a chain of twin cities on the Mexico-US border, particularly within the Rio Grande valley.

★ Valparaiso-Viña del Mar and La Serena-Coquimbo (Chile)

★ Brighton and Hove, UK, though there are several other smaller towns like Worthing which make up the metropolitan area.

★ Islamabad and Rawalpindi (Pakistan)

★ Hyderabad and Secunderabad (India)

★ Ramallah and al-Bireh (West Bank)

Examples of 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.
In the current ''Flash'' comics, Central City and Keystone City are shown as twin cities; earlier comics presented each city as located in the same space but on different parallel Earths.
In the ''Discworld'' novels, Ankh-Morpork is referred to as "the twin cities of proud Ankh and pestilent Morpork", but has been a single political entity in all the books thus far.

Examples of cities formed by merging

★ 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 and Pest.

★ Minneapolis. St. Anthony (not to be confused with St. Anthony Village, a modern city which is a suburb of Minneapolis) was a twin city to Minneapolis in the two cities' youth. Minneapolis, the larger of the two, annexed St. Anthony in the late 1800s.

★ New York City (five boroughs, historically especially between Manhattan and Brooklyn)

★ Hong Kong (Victoria City and Kowloon)

★ Thunder Bay, Ontario (Fort William and Port Arthur).

★ Lloydminster, Canada on the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, was formerly composed of two separate entities.

★ Halifax and Dartmouth (Canada) were forcibly merged in 1996 along with Bedford and Halifax County to create the Halifax Regional Municipality.

Resistance to merging

Bloomington and Normal, Illinois have always rebuffed any merger referendum, and where the original boundary is the appropriately named "Division Street". In England, the cities of Leeds and Bradford are very close, but have strong separate identities and would not see themselves as part of the same entity. Both cities have individual cathedrals and councils, as well as having separate sports teams.

Notes

See also

★ Divided cities

★ United cities

★ Town twinning

★ Cross-border town naming

★ Tri-cities

★ Quad cities

★ Megacity