Twin cities

Twin cities are a special case of two cities or urban centres that are founded in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time, losing most of their mutual buffer zone. Twin cities are a special case of two cities or urban centres that are founded in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time, losing most of their mutual buffer zone. There are no precise criteria for twin-cityhood, but to be considered twin cities, the cities involved have to have a similar administrative status and somewhat comparable sizes; a suburb of a much larger population center is usually not considered to form a twin city with it. For example, South San Francisco (population about 65,000) is not considered a twin city with San Francisco (population about 850,000). However, cities considered twinned by proximity do not necessarily match demographically, economically, or politically. In many historical cases, cities that grew into each other's space lost their individual identities, and the border or barrier originally separating them became almost irrelevant. An 1873 case of twin cities merging to become a united city is 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. In China, the three ancient cities of Hankou, Hanyang, and Wuchang, separated by the junction of the Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers, were joined in 1927 into the single entity of Wuhan. Twin cities may share an airport into whose airport codes are integrated the component initials, e.g., DFW (Dallas–Fort Worth), LBA (Leeds–Bradford), MSP (Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota), RDU (Raleigh and Durham, NC), and CAK (Akron–Canton, Ohio). In some cases, such as Albury/Wodonga in Australia, the two cities are permanently divided by a state border, often one that strictly adheres to a geographical landmark, such as the Murray River that divides New South Wales from Victoria, and thus Albury from Wodonga. In other cases twin cities can be divided by an international border, but retain a cultural and historical similarity, for example Haparanda (Sweden) and Tornio (Finland), Leticia (Colombia) and Tabatinga (Brazil) or Valga (Estonia) and Valka (Latvia).