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City Twins Association
City Twins Association is an association that develops cooperation between its members. The association represents the interests of twin cities that are divided into two and between two different countries, but form a one entity in terms of population, economy and society (such as Valga in Estonia and Valka in Latvia on the Estonian-Latvian border). City Twins Association was founded on 13.12.2006 in Imatra, Finland. Aims The association aims to * boost and develop cross-border cooperation among its members * help its member's governing bodies and administrations to share experiences with each other and with other members * find and develop better solutions for local governments that can help to develop twin towns * create and execute cooperation projects Members * Imatra, Finland * Svetogorsk, Russia * Valga, Estonia * Valka, Latvia * Haparanda, Sweden * Tornio, Finland * Narva, Estonia * Ivangorod, Russia * Görlitz, Germany * Frankfurt (Oder) Frankfurt (Oder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valga, Estonia
Valga (german: Walk) is a town in southern Estonia and the capital of Valga County and Valga Parish. Until their separation in 1920, Valga and the town of Valka in northern Latvia were one town. They are now twin-towns. The area of Valga is and that of Valka is . Their populations are respectively 12,261 and 6,164. On 21 December 2007 all border-crossing points were removed and roads and fences opened between the two countries with both countries joining the Schengen Agreement. Location and transport The distance to Tartu is , Pärnu , Tallinn , Riga and Pskov . Valga is situated at the junction of roads and railways. The Hummuli–Tartu–Riga railway is connected via Tapa with the Tallinn–Narva–St Petersburg main line. After closing April 2008 for extensive repair work Edelaraudtee railway services from other parts of Estonia to Valga re-opened in January 2010. From 2014 all domestic train services in Estonia are operated by Elron who runs three services a day from V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of . The capital city Tallinn and Tartu are the two largest urban areas of the country. The Estonian language is the autochthonous and the official language of Estonia; it is the first language of the majority of its population, as well as the world's second most spoken Finnic language. The land of what is now modern Estonia has been inhabited by '' Homo sapiens'' since at least 9,000 BC. The medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last " pagan" civilisations in Europe to adopt Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valka
Valka (; german: Walk) is a town and municipality in northern Latvia, on the border with Estonia along both banks of the river Pedele. Valka and the Estonian town Valga are twins, separated by the Estonian/Latvian border but using the slogan "One Town, Two Countries". The border dividing the Livonian town of Walk was marked out in 1920 by an international jury headed by British Colonel Stephen George Tallents. With the expansion of the Schengen Agreement and abolition of the Estonian/Latvian border in 2007, it was announced that common public bus transport would be established between Valka and Valga. Also, all border crossing-points were removed and roads and fences opened. In 2016 it was announced that due to better welfare and higher salaries in Estonia, many Valka inhabitants have registered themselves as inhabitants of Valga. History The town of Walk (in German) was first mentioned in 1286 and from 1419 was the seat of the Landtag of the Livonian Confederation. City right ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the Baltic states; and is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of , with a population of 1.9 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians belong to the ethno-linguistic group of the Balts; and speak Latvian, one of the only two surviving Baltic languages. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population. After centuries of Teutonic, Swedish, Polish-Lithuanian and Russian rule, which was mainly executed by the local Baltic German aristocracy, the independent R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imatra
Imatra is a town and municipality in southeastern Finland. Imatra is dominated by Lake Saimaa, the Vuoksi River and the border with Russia. On the other side of the border, away from the centre of Imatra, lies the Russian town of Svetogorsk. St Petersburg is situated to the southeast, Finland's capital Helsinki is away and Lappeenranta, the nearest Finnish town, is away. Imatra belongs to the administrative province of Southern Finland and the region of South Karelia. The main employers are pulp and paper manufacturer Stora Enso Oyj, the Town of Imatra, engineering steel manufacturer Ovako Bar Oy Ab, and the Finnish Border Guard. , the total number of employees was 12,423. , 1,868 employees were employed by the Town of Imatra. The town manager of Imatra is Ari Lindeman. The town's nicknames include Imis, Ibiza and Nahkalippis City (Leather Baseball Cap City). Because of the location near the border, Russian tourists are a common sight in the town, and Russian tourism grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland across Estonia to the south. Finland covers an area of with a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city, forming a larger metropolitan area with the neighbouring cities of Espoo, Kauniainen, and Vantaa. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. Finnish, alongside Swedish, are the official languages. Swedish is the native language of 5.2% of the population. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to the boreal in the north. The land cover is primarily a boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes. Finland was first inhabited around 9000 BC after the Last Glacial Period. The Stone Age introduced several differ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Svetogorsk
Svetogorsk (russian: Светого́рск) is an industrial town in Vyborgsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Karelian Isthmus, on the Vuoksi River. It is located from the Finnish–Russian border, from the Finnish town of Imatra, and from St. Petersburg. Population: History Originally called Enso, the town was founded in 1887Official website of Leningrad Oblast. to serve a paper mill. At the time, Enso was part of Viipuri Province and the Jääski Municipality in the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was an autonomic state within the Russian Empire. When Finland became independent in 1917, Enso remained part of Finland. The territory was ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union by the Moscow Peace Treaty as a result of the Winter War. After the Winter War, the Finns and the Soviets disagreed on the interpretation of the peace treaty regarding Enso. The former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Väinö Tanner wrote in his memoirs: "Already now a di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haparanda
Haparanda (; fi, Haaparanta, , aspen shore or bank) is a locality and the seat of Haparanda Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. It is adjacent to Tornio, Finland. Haparanda had a population of 4,856 in 2010, out of a municipal total of 10,200 inhabitants. Haparanda is, despite its small population, for historical reasons often still referred to as a ''city''. Statistics Sweden, however, only counts localities with more than 10,000 inhabitants as cities. Haparanda is located at the northerly extreme of the Swedish coastline, and far removed from large cities. Its summers are very mild for a coastal location so far north, and winters are normally not extremely cold in spite of the relative proximity to the Arctic Circle. Haparanda has strong connections to Tornio and the Finnish side of the river and bilingualism of Swedish and Finnish is common although Swedish is the sole official language and the mother tongue of a vast majority of inhabitants. In 2010, it was estimated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tornio
Tornio (; sv, Torneå; sme, Duortnus ; smn, Tuárnus) is a city and municipality in Lapland, Finland. The city forms a cross-border twin city together with Haparanda on the Swedish side. The municipality covers an area of , of which is water. The population density is , with a total population of (). Tornio is unilingually Finnish with a negligible number of native Swedish speakers, although this does not count vast numbers of bilinguals who speak Swedish as a second language, with an official target of universal working bilingualism for both border municipalities. History The delta of the Torne river has been inhabited since the end of the last ice age, and there are currently (1995) 16 settlement sites known in the area, similar to those found in Vuollerim (). The Swedish part of the region is not far from the oldest permanent settlement site found in Scandinavia. A former hypothesis that this region was uninhabited and colonised from the Viking Age onward ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narva
Narva, russian: Нарва is a municipality and city in Estonia. It is located in Ida-Viru County, Ida-Viru county, at the Extreme points of Estonia, eastern extreme point of Estonia, on the west bank of the Narva (river), Narva river which forms the Estonia–Russia border, Estonia–Russia international border. With 54,409 inhabitants (as of 2020) Narva is Estonia's third largest city after capital Tallinn and Tartu. In 1944, Narva was nearly completely destroyed during the battles of World War II. During the period of Soviet occupation of Estonia, Soviet occupation (1944–1991), the city’s original native inhabitants were not permitted to return after the war, and immigrant workers from Russia and other parts of the Soviet Union, former USSR were brought in to populate the city. The city whose population had been, as of 1934 census, 65% ethnic Estonian, became overwhelmingly non-Estonian in the second half of the 20th century. According to more recent data, 46.7% of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivangorod
Ivangorod ( rus, Иванго́род, p=ɪvɐnˈɡorət; et, Jaanilinn; vot, Jaanilidna) is a town in Kingiseppsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the east bank of the Narva river which flows along the Estonia–Russia international border, west of St. Petersburg. The town's population was recorded as Ivangorod is a major border crossing point and a railway station by the Tallinn– St. Petersburg line. It is located just opposite to the Estonian town of Narva. The town is the site of the Ivangorod Fortress, a prominent fortification monument of the 15th and the 16th centuries. History The fortress, established in 1492 during the reign of Ivan III of Moscow, took its name (literally: Ivan-town — ''gorod'' in Russian means "town" or "city") from that of the Tsar. Between 1581 and 1590 and from 1612 to 1704, Sweden controlled the area. Ivangorod was granted town privileges and administered as a Russian township under the Swedish Empire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Görlitz
Görlitz (; pl, Zgorzelec, hsb, Zhorjelc, cz, Zhořelec, :de:Ostlausitzer Mundart, East Lusatian dialect: ''Gerlz'', ''Gerltz'', ''Gerltsch'') is a town in the Germany, German state of Saxony. It is located on the Lusatian Neisse River, and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia as well as the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia, after Cottbus. Görlitz is the easternmost town in Germany (easternmost village is Zentendorf, Zentendorf (Šćeńc)), and lies opposite the Poland, Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was the eastern part of Görlitz until 1945. The town has approximately 56,000 inhabitants, which make Görlitz the List of cities in Saxony by population, sixth-largest town in Saxony. It is the seat of the Görlitz (district), district of Görlitz. Together with Zgorzelec, it forms the Euro City of Görlitz/Zgorzelec, which has a combined population of around 86,000. While not Sorbian languages, Lusatiophone itself, the town is situated just east of the Sorbian la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
