Nashville is Building Global Connections

Courtesy of SCN

President Dwight Eisenhower started Sister Cities International in 1956 to establish peace, respect, understanding and friendship between people from different cities around the world. The Nashville chapter is called Sister Cities of Nashville (SCN), and today, Nashville has 10 sister cities worldwide. 

“To become a sister city to Nashville, individuals or a group of citizens approach our organization to request establishing a new sister city relationship,” says Sarah Lingo, SCN executive director. “An SCN New Cities Committee then studies the proposal and decides whether to proceed. If approved, SCN eventually submits a proposal to the Nashville mayor and Metro Council to move forward.” 

Courtesy of SCN

Nashville’s 10 Sister Cities: A Diverse Network

Nashville’s ten sister cities are Belfast, Northern Ireland; Caen, France; Chengdu, China; Erbil, Kurdistan; Edmonton, Canada; Kamakura, Japan; Magdeburg, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina; Taiyuan, China; and Tamworth, Australia. Edmonton became the first Nashville sister city in 1990, and the most recent addition was Erbil in 2023. 

“It takes about two years to fully establish the partnership because it involves several steps, including both cities needing to comply, in-person trips to the cities, working with the two local governments and more,” Lingo says. 

Courtesy of SCN

The Impact of Sister Cities: Cultural Exchange and Education

She adds that a big part of the Sister Cities program is having high school students correspond with fellow global students, with universities doing the same. For example, Belmont University in Nashville has had several student exchanges with Queen’s University in Belfast. 

“Another nice story is that when kids from our sister city in Mendoza visited Hunters Lane High School in Nashville, the Spanish-speaking kids at Hunters Lane loved interacting with the Argentina high schoolers,” Lingo says. “Nashville is a diverse city, and our organization is hopefully doing a small part in making the world a better place.”