Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index See also Twin towns in Europe. Sister cities or twin towns are local school and/or chamber of commerce programs designed to foster international communication and cooperation. Like the city version of a "pen pal", a city is assigned one or more similarly sized and situated international cities. Sisters cities usually share characterstics, such as both being coastal cities or island-cities. The programs include exchange students or economic programs. The Sister Cities program was begun in 1956 by Dwight Eisenhower. It was originally administered as part of the National League of Cities, but since 1967 has been a separate organization: Sister Cities International. Sister cities also function on higher level as well (county, state, province). For example, Hainan Province of China befriends with other states and provinces. External links Sister Cities International See also Twin Cities, an unrelated term that describes two geographically proximal cities which function much like a single larger city. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.