Do you know which town(s) across the world your borough is twinned with? For many of us, town twinning rarely affects our day to day lives, except the odd photo of a group of German exchange students appearing in the local paper, so it’s no surprise if you don’t.

Many town-twinning arrangements predate the modern London boroughs system, and were absorbed into the appropriate boroughs when they were introduced. Town twinning became popular shortly after the second world war, in an attempt to forge links and understanding between different cultures.

The map above shows the national flags of the twin towns of each borough (full list below). We’ve only used official, borough wide twin towns on this map (so towns that are twinned with specific institutions such as schools and choirs, rather than the borough as a whole, have not been included).

Seven London boroughs appear to have no official twin towns at all: City of London, Islington, Lambeth, Merton, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster

The borough with the most twin towns is Barnet, with eight: five in Europe, one in Africa, one in Asia and one in America. While London’s furthest flung twin town is Gwanak-gu in South Korea, which is twinned with Kingston. The closest is Doncaster (UK), which is twinned with Camden.

Barking & Dagenham

• Witten, Germany

Barnet

• Chaville, France
• Jinga, Uganda
• Le Raincy, France
• Montclair, USA
• Morphou, Cyprus
• Ramat Gan, Israel
• Siegen-Wittgenstein, Germany
• Tempelhof, Germany

Bexley

• Evry, France
• Arnsberg, Germany

Brent

• South Dublin, Ireland

Bromley

• Neuwied, Germany

Camden

• Doncaster, UK

Croydon

• Arnhem, Netherlands

Ealing

• Marcq-en-Baroeul, France
• Bielany, Poland
• Kreis-Steinfurt, Germany

Enfield

• Courbevoie, France
• Gladbeck, Germany
• Halandri, Greece
• Sariyer, Turkey

Greenwich

• Berlin-Reinickendorf, Germany
• Maribor, Slovenia
• Tema, Ghana

Hackney

• Haifa, Israel
• Grenada, West Indies

Hammersmith & Fulham

• Berlin-Neukoelln, Germany
• Boulogne-Billancourt, France
• Anderlecht, Belgium

Haringey

• Arima, Trinidad
• Clarendon, Jamaica
• Koblenz, Germany
• Larnaca, Cyprus
• Livry-Gargan, France
• Sundbyberg, Sweden

Harrow

• Douai, France

Havering

• Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany
• Hesdin, France

Hillingdon

• Schleswig, Germany
• Mantes-la-Jolie, France

Hounslow

• Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
• Lahore, Pakistan
• Ramallah, Palestine

Kensington & Chelsea

• Cannes, France

Kingston

• Oldenburg, Germany
• Gwanak-gu, South Korea

Lewisham

• Antony, France
• Charlottenburg, Germany
• Matagalpa, Nicaragua

Newham

• Kaiserslauten, Germany
• Richmond Upon Thames
• Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Konstanz, Germany
• Fontainebleau, France

Southwark

• Langenhagen, Germany

Sutton

• Wilmersdorf, Germany
• Minden, Germany
• Gagny, France
• Gladsaxe, Denmark

Waltham Forest

• Sainte-Mandé, France
• Wandsbeck, Germany
• St Johns, Antigua and Barbuda
• Roseau, the Commonwealth of Dominica
• Mirpur, Pakistan

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