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. The idea is to pair towns and cities in different countries with the accent upon fostering human contacts. Twin towns often (though by no means always) have similar demographic and other characteristics. While still more popular as a concept in Europe than elsewhere, the idea has now spread to other continents; in North America the expression Sister Cities is used.
Within Europe, town twinning is now supported by the European Union. The support scheme was established in 1989. In 2003 an annual budget of about 12 million euros was allocated to about 1300 projects.
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