What do Swindon and Walt Disney World have in common?

The United Kingdom started pairing its towns with worldwide towns after the Second World War – an initiative initially started to encourage tourism and good trading between countries. The idea of twinning towns was also to help rebuild damaged relationships and most of the towns that are twinned in the UK are matched with places in France and Germany, with some exceptions. The concept encouraged towns that had been affected from the war to mix and communicate with its twin town.

Money-saving experts Voucherbox have researched some interesting pairings and put together a list of twinned towns – some of them are even triplets. Many places are paired with some relevance like sharing a name, while some are unusually twinned with no similarities whatsoever.

Swindon Meets Walt Disney

Walt Disney World in Florida is home to the magical kingdom where everyone’s dreams come true, basking in average temperatures in the 40s and renowned as the largest theme park in the world. In 2009 Disney World selected the Wiltshire town Swindon as its twin town. Swindon was in competition with 24 other British towns including Brighton and Blackpool.

The Disney executives made their choice not by visiting the town but by watching a promotional video that was put together by a town resident, made up of clever similarities between the town’s Magic Roundabout and Disney’s teacup ride, or its cinema and Disney’s Hollywood studios. “She made us laugh”, said Dave Coombs, a Disney World spokesman as he recognised the ingenious example of public relations that the town had created.

To Twin or Not to Twin?

Some UK towns have prestigious twins: the Midlands city of Birmingham is twinned with Chicago, the glamourous lights and birthplace of Obama. Glasgow in Scotland is twinned with Havana in Cuba and Sunderland is paired with the capital of the United States, Washington DC. As for London, it has many twins, amongst which Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur.

While many towns are still twinned, British towns are beginning to release themselves from their twin, claiming that the practice does not have much relevance or need in contemporary society. For instance, Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire made the decision in 2011 to end local authority support for Friedberg in Germany, their twin town of 46 years.

Novelty Twin Towns

Perhaps the idea behind twinning towns has worn off and countries do not feel it bears much importance or relevance in creating good international relations. In recent years, some towns have decided to have a novelty twinning, taking the notion of cultural pairing to a new level by partnering with virtual or fictional places. Wincanton in Somerset twinned with Ankh-Morpork from author Terry Pratchett’s Discworld book series. More than a thousand residents and fans of Pratchett were very disappointed as the town was banned from putting the mythical links on their road sign. The Isle of Skye in the Scottish isle has paired itself with Skylands, a place in the Skylanders SWAP Force video game, as an apparent marketing ploy.