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Town twinning is a concept whereby towns or cities in geographically and politically distinct areas are paired, with the goal of fostering human contact and cultural links. In Europe, such pairs of towns are known as twin towns, friendship towns or partner towns; in North America, India, Pakistan and Australasia, the term sister cities is used for the same concept; and brother cities is the term in the former Soviet bloc. Sister cities often (though by no means always) have similar demographic and other characteristics. Sometimes, even larger areas enter into "twinning" agreements, such as that between the provinces of Hainan in China and Jeju in South Korea.
The concept can be likened to a scaled up version of a "pen pal" scheme, in which the "pals" are whole towns or cities. In practice, the twinning arrangements often lead to student exchange programs, as well as economic and cultural collaborations. Scottsdale has five sister cities:
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