Twinning and partnerships

Abidjan, a cosmopolitan city of Sub-Saharan Africa, is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast, has a population of five million inhabitants and a surface area of 2,119 km², i.e. 0,6% of the national territory.

Aachen (or Aix-la-Chapelle as it is known in French-speaking Liège) is a city located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Bilbao is the focal point of a conurbation with a population of almost one million, made up of 25 municipalities situated on both sides of the Nervión River.

Cologne is a one thousand year old city located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. With its population of one million, it is the fourth biggest city in Germany and the largest in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Kraków is a city of almost 750,000 inhabitants and is probably one of the oldest cities in Poland. Indeed, it was the capital from 1320 to 1596. It has a wealth of historical buildings, including the 14th century gothic cathedral, dedicated to Saint Stanislas, as well as palaces, old houses, churches, galleries and museums.

Elbasan is a major city in central Albania with a population of 140,000. It is located on the Shkumbini River, approximately 20 miles south east of the capital, Tirana.

At a north-south and east-west crossroads, the discovery of iron ore and the development of the metallurgy industry in the 20th century soon made Esch-sur-Alzette a modern, constantly booming and active town.

Fuzhou is the capital of the Fujian Province in the People's Republic of China and is the province's political, economic and cultural centre.

Gent is both a historical and modern city with a population of 258,000.

Hasselt, "the capital of (good) taste", has a population of approximately 70,000.

Heerlen, a city with a population of 95,000, located in the Dutch province of Limburg, was greatly affected in the 1960's by the coal crisis.

With almost 230,000 inhabitants, Lille is one of the fifteen biggest cities in France, and the administrative centre of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region that borders Belgium. Lille-Métropole, the name of the conurbation's urban community, has a population of 1.2 million with the towns of Roubaix, Tourcoing and Villeneuve-d’Ascq.

Lubumbashi is the administrative centre of the Katanga Province. After the capital Kinshasa, it is the second biggest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo in terms of history, economic standing and population.

Maastricht is the biggest city and administrative centre of the Dutch Limburg Province.

Nancy is a large city in the east of France (in the Grand Est region) and has a population of more than 100,000 in a conurbation of almost 350,000 inhabitants.

Plzen is the administrative centre of the Plzen region (in the Czech Republic).

With a population of more than 240,000 (and almost 2 million in the conurbation), Porto is the second biggest city in Portugal.

Port-Vila is the capital of Vanuatu and the administrative centre of the Shefa Province.

The City of Liège wanted to support and continue this mobilisation, and dis so through concluding a partnership with Port-Au-Prince following the decision of the municipal council on 27th April 2015.

Quebec City is the capital of the French-speaking province of the same name.

Ramallah, nicknamed the fiancée of Palestine, is a dynamic and cosmopolitan city that is the focus of political, cultural and economic power in Palestine.

Rotterdam is a Dutch port city with a population of 588,576 habitants (and approximately 1,100,000 in the surrounding conurbation). The Rotterdam conurbation is part of the Randstad Holland conurbation (with 7,100,000 inhabitants between Amsterdam - Haarlem – The Hague - Dordrecht - Utrecht).

After the capital Dakar, Saint-Louis is the second city of Senegal. However, its history places it in a leading role, because it was the first city founded by Europeans in Western Africa (in 1659) and received its name in homage to the Kings of France. For a long time it was a very important hub in the gold, ivory and slave trades. It was the capital of French-speaking Western Africa and then of Senegal and Mauritania until independence (in 1960).

Samarkand, a partner since January 2005, is an important cultural, scientific and economic centre of Uzbekistan.

Szeged, located at the confluence of the Tisza and Maros rivers, has been a settlement since prehistorical times. In the 2nd century, the site was already mentioned in Ptolemy's writings under the name of Partiszkon.

Contacts have been established since 2002 with this city of 2,250,000 inhabitants. Taiyuan boasts thirty cultural and historical State and province protected sites.

Tangier occupies an exceptional natural site, at the convergence of two continents (Africa and Europe) and two seas (the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea).

Cossed by the Pô River and bordered by the Alps, Turin, the administrative centre of the Piedmont region, is the 4th biggest city in Italy with a population of more than 850,000 and an urban area that numbers more than 1,700,000 inhabitants.

Volgograd, located on the right bank of the Lower Volga, 400 km from the Caspian Sea, developed around a fort built in the 16th century.

The city of Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei Province, has a population of more than 6.5 million. Its greater urban area is home to a population of 11 million.