Capital cities' twin towns / sister cities -Statistics and curiosities

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Which capital cities have the most twin towns / sister cities?

This is probably the first question that comes to mind after reading the title of the blog, so let's start with answering it!

Capital cities with 25 or more twin towns.
View of Taipei, capital of Taiwan.

As you can see in the chart above, Taipei is the capital city with the most twin towns. However, considering Taiwan as a country may be a bit controversial. If you decide not to count it, then the title goes to Ankara (Turkey), which has just one less twin town. Beijing (China) follows closely with 48 twin towns. After that, there's a big drop off, with fourth placers Havana (Cuba) and Kyiv (Ukraine) having only 38 twin towns. They are also the first non-Asian cities to appear on the ranking.

Which capital cities have the least twin towns / sister cities?

You might be wondering why there's no chart this time. Well, the answer is simple: there's actually 28 capital cities without twin towns! I've grouped them into catergories according to the reasons for them not having twin towns:

-Capital cities of microstates or small island countries-

| Andorra la Vella (Andorra), Funafuti (Tuvalu), Kingstown (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), Majuro (Marshall Islands), Monaco (Monaco), Moroni (Comoros), Palikir (Micronesia), Roseau (Dominica), Singapore (Singapore), South Tarawa (Kiribati), Vaduz (Liechtenstein), Vatican City (Vatican City) and Yaren (Nauru) |

Their countries' small sizes is probably the reason why these cities haven't made town twinning agreements.

Vaduz Castle, in Liechtenstein's capital city.
Singapore, which has a considerably large population for its area.
Roseau, the capital city of the Caribbean nation of Dominica.

You might miss some countries from that list, That is because some of this small countries' capitals do have twin towns. The most notable examples are Port Louis (Mauritius) and Praia (Cape Verde), both having 12 twin towns! For reference, that is more than major cities like Washington D.C. (USA) and Tokyo (Japan),which have 11 and 10, respectively.

Port Louis, Mauritius
Uppatasanati Pagoda in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.

-Fairly recent planned capital cities-

 | Abuja (Nigeria), Gitega (Burundi), Juba (South Sudan), Naypyidaw (Myanmar) and Ngerulmud (Palau), Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte (Sri Lanka), Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast) |

These capital cities were changed in the last 50 years from an important city to a new location where a planned city was built to serve as the country's new capital, or simply to another city. These capitals might still not be as globalized as other capital cities.

Ngerulmud, Palau actually fits in both this category and the previous one!

Juba, South Sudan became a capital in 2011, when the country gained its independence. It is still the youngest country, at least until Bougainville gets its independence in 2027.


Palau's capitol building in Ngerulmud.

-Other reasons-

| Asmara (Eritrea), Bern (Switzerland), Helsinki (Finland), Kampala (Uganda), Nicosia (Cyprus), Porto-Novo (Benin), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Stockholm (Sweden), Thimphu (Bhutan) and Vienna (Austria) |

Here I grouped the rest of the capital cities with 0 twin towns.

Some are the capitals of isolated countries (Asmara and Thimphu) while others are not interested in having formal agreements with other cities, like Stockholm and Bern.

Thimphu, Bhutan.
Helsinki, Finland.
Bern, Switzerland.

Best friends!: Paris and Rome


There are several capitals with only one twin town, so what makes these two different?

Paris and Rome are each other's twin towns and neither of them has any other twin town.

Rome's pantheon.
Paris' pantheon.

Top 10 capital cities by continent

-Asia-

Chart showing the 10 capital cities with the most twin towns in Asia.

Three cities top the chart here, Taipei, Ankara and Beijing, with a sizeable lead over the rest. They are all major Asian cities, so it's not surprising.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia manages to outperform other major cities like Seoul or Tokyo in this ranking, which is quite surprising in my opinion. I guess everybody likes Mongolian throat singing!

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital city. Mongolia is the country with the lowest population density.

-Africa-

Chart showing the 10 capital cities with the most twin towns in Africa.

Dakar, Senegal takes the lead in Africa, with 21 sister cities. Cairo is the runner-up with 19, and third place is a four-way tie between Addis Ababa, Port Louis, Praia and Tunis. It seems like small African nations' capitals do well in this ranking, even though they are still surpassed by a few major cities.

Zitouna mosque, part of the old town of Tunis (Medina of Tunis) which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
View of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, one of Africa's largest economies.

-The Americas (North and South)-

Chart showing the 10 capital cities with the most twin towns in the Americas.

Overall South American capitals do better than their North American counterparts. Havana, Cuba, which tops the chart, San José, Costa Rica and Panama City are the only North American capitals in this top 10.

Montevideo and Asunción place second and third despite being located in small countries in comparison to their neighbour' capitals, like Brasilia (10 sister cities).

San José, Costa Rica, not to be confused with San José, California. I guess us the Spanish weren't the most imaginative with names.

-Europe-

Chart showing the 10 capital cities with the most twin towns in Europe.

Kyiv and Moscow appear in the top two spots. More expected cities, like Amsterdam or Madrid also appear on the top 10, as well as two out of three Baltic capitals (Riga and Vilnius). In addition, exactly half of the cities on the top ten are on the European Union, and half are outside of the EU.

Out of all of them, Ljubljana is the most surprising due to it being comparatively small but still ranking above famous or big cities like Berlin (16 sister cities) or Athens (18 sister cities).

View of the iconic Madrid towers.
View of Ljubljana, inccluding its castle.

-Oceania-

Chart showing every capital city in Oceania that has sister cities
Royal Palace of Tonga, in Nuku'alofa.

If you expected the top three to be Canberra, Wellington and Port Moresby in that order, then you were wrong. New Zealand actually beats Australia in this ranking.

Only 9 of Oceania's capital cities have sister cities, including Nuku'alofa, which is only twinned with Whitby, a town in the UK.

So, that's all I had for today. I hope you enjoyed this blog. I know it's very niche or something like that, but I thought it might be interesting to some people (including me). In case you're wondering about the source, all of the numbers came from this Wikipedia page. You can check it out if you want to know your city or town's sister cities.
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Level 43
Jun 9, 2022
I wasn’t waiting for a new blog from yours! you’ve won it, i have to work on mine now That was a great lecture :)
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Level 55
Jun 10, 2022
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
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Level 78
Jun 10, 2022
Very interesting blog, I wonder why some capitals are more popular than others. A cynical person may suggest there is more backhanders to officials, who knows.
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Level 55
Jun 10, 2022
That's probably a factor for some cities, unfortunately. But in many cases town twinnings are actually because of reasonable factors, like common history or culture (or even name, as shown by Dull, Scotland, Boring, United States and Bland, Australia, which I think is a hilarious example Xd)

Btw, glad you liked the blog!

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Level 78
Jun 11, 2022
Yeah, the Dull, Boring and Bland twinning is brilliant and shows what a great sense of humour people have.

Dull, Boring and Bland sounds like a firm of accountants.

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Level 74
Jun 13, 2022
Great blog!
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Level 55
Jun 13, 2022
Thanks!