What does it mean when a Town or City etc. is 'twinned' with another?

i'm going to go another way and say it is when two independent towns grow so large they become one large urban sprawl.

Usually it's when two cities have some affiliation that's so difficult to notice someone feels the need to link them together, as others have mentioned. Sometimes though, it's just two cities that are on either side of a river. Near where I live, on the New South Wales and Victorian border(in Australia), there's two cities called Albury and Wodonga. Albury is in NSW. Wodonga is in Victoria. They're on either side of the Murray river and are referred to as the twin cities. It only takes a few minutes to drive from one to the other, just over a bridge. Some businesses there have twin city in their name too, especially in the smaller Wodonga. They're both really just small towns though. Probably only about 300K combined populations. Although Wiki seems to think it's only 100K :S http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albury-Wodonga

It's like pairing of quantum particles. The twins always instantly know what the other's state is, and instantly change-faster than the Speed of Light!

With an ordinary matting of two Burgs, there comes to be a brood of Suburbs.!LOL

I'm so glad someone knew the answer to this.

I lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas for many years and it was sister cities with Cisterna, Italy (there was a sign). I knew they were sister cities because a particular WWII battle (Battle of Cisterna, outside of Cisterna, Italy) was lead by a guy from Fort Smith. But I had no idea what the heck it meant that they were sister cities.

A twin city is NOT a sister city. Minneapolis/St. Paul are twin cities, they lie across the river from each other where they become one metropolis. Philadephia, PA and its poorer sibling, Camden, NJ are also twin cities. Just across the river from each other. Winston-Salem, NC is another example.

Sister cities: two distant cities or towns agree to partner each other, for various reasons.

There is another town somewhere else that is of similar size and makeup. So as a promotional gimmick they call themselves "twins" and make up all kinds of stupid comparisons and competitions.

when two cities are close to each other and same size, they call it twin and short after twinned.

it means that either there were two tower eggs in the womb and both were fertilized which are known as fraternal twin towers or one egg split and made identical towers

the help out kinda they support each other like scotland it twinned with Malawi and every year we do a special collection for malawi it;s almost like family

It means their nuclear weapons are aimed at each other.

It's when they are sexually fused together, like the darkness in the night. STOP SMOKING WEED! lol