The concept of town twinning aims to pair towns or cities from different countries in order to promote cultural and social links.

These international partnerships first began in Europe in the early years of the 20th century, but the number of twin towns really started to increase after the Second World War to promote reconciliation and create peace between countries. 

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is twinned with six towns: two from France (Neuilly-sur-Seine and Saint-Cloud), two from Germany (Bad Godesberg and Goslar), Frascati in Italy, and Kotrijk in Belgium. These partnerships were all established after the Second World War, from 1955 to 1981.

Within the Royal Borough, there exists an International Partner Towns Committee. They have a wide range of aims, including to develop further the “friendship links” between the Borough and its partner towns. Moreover, they try to increase mutual understanding of the partner towns by encouraging all people within the Borough to take part in exchange activities to develop contacts and cultural education. 

There are a wide variety of exchange activities between the Borough and its partner towns, including school exchanges, sports tournaments, musical groups, work and industry exchanges, as well as activities relating to health and welfare. 

The Committee also aims to consider all proposals of local organisations which relate to their twin towns and to make recommendations on these proposals in cases where they require the approval of the Borough Council. 

Ultimately, town twinning is very valuable to the Borough for a multitude of reasons. These international partnerships create goodwill and friendship and provide an understanding of cultures in different countries. They also help to combat discrimination against different nations and encourage people to learn other languages. Lastly, they provide opportunities for residents of the Borough to travel abroad and allow the Borough to discuss common problems with their twin towns to establish best practice solutions. 

The Borough’s deep-rooted and long-established connections with these twin towns are extremely important and these relationships are ones to be maintained and fostered moving forward.