Nashville may be known around the world as Music City, but its international connections extend far beyond country music.
Across Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and the Middle East, Nashville has built relationships with communities thousands of miles from Tennessee. These partnerships are part of the Sister Cities movement, which brings cities together through cultural exchange, education, professional collaboration, community programs, and person-to-person relationships.
Today, Nashville has 10 official Sister Cities and two Friendship Cities. They range from historic European communities such as Belfast and Caen to Tamworth, Australia — another city with a particularly strong connection to country music. Nashville’s newest Sister City is Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
So, what exactly makes another community Nashville’s “sister city,” and what connects these faraway places to Tennessee?
What Is a Sister City?
The modern international Sister Cities movement traces its roots to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1956 White House conference on citizen diplomacy. The idea was to create greater understanding between people from different countries through direct, person-to-person relationships. Nashville’s Metro Council has described the program in terms of friendship, international understanding, and people of different cultures learning to appreciate their differences.
Sister Cities of Nashville was founded in 1990 and operates as a volunteer organization and chapter of Sister Cities International. Its mission centers on connecting Nashvillians with people around the world through mutual understanding, respect, and cooperation.
These relationships aren’t merely names on a list. Nashville’s Sister Cities programs have included student exchanges, professional exchanges, cultural events, international delegations, travel and hospitality programs, and community service.
For Nashville students in particular, the program can make international relationships surprisingly personal. Nashville hosts students from partner cities for reciprocal exchanges, while Nashville students have opportunities to travel abroad, stay with host families, attend schools, and experience everyday life in another culture.
Here are the cities that make up Nashville’s international family.
1. Edmonton, Canada
Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, represents Nashville’s Canadian connection.
Like Nashville, Edmonton is a regional center for culture, education, business, and entertainment. The relationship also provides opportunities for young people to learn how communities in another country approach civic life.
One example came during the 2022–2023 Sister Cities program year, when Nashville-area elementary and middle school classrooms participated in virtual civic exchanges with Edmonton, including presentations to civic leaders and virtual interaction with local government.
The Edmonton relationship demonstrates an important aspect of the Sister Cities concept: international exchange doesn’t always require crossing an ocean. Communities within North America can still learn a great deal from one another.
2. Caen, France
Nashville’s relationship with Caen connects Tennessee with one of Normandy’s historically significant cities.
Caen’s history stretches back centuries, and the city and surrounding Normandy region played an especially important role during World War II. For a city like Nashville that places considerable value on preserving and sharing its own history, the relationship creates a natural environment for cultural and educational exchange.
The partnership has also produced direct student experiences. In June 2023, Sister Cities of Nashville sent students to Caen for a two-week immersive cultural exchange.
Those exchanges turn the concept of an international partnership into something tangible: Nashville students experience French life firsthand, while visiting students can experience Tennessee from the perspective of local families.
3. Belfast, Northern Ireland
Belfast gives Nashville an important connection to Northern Ireland.
The two cities have distinct histories, but both have strong cultural identities and internationally recognized musical traditions. Nashville’s reputation is built heavily around country, Americana, gospel, and songwriting, while Belfast has produced its own influential musical and artistic culture.
Through the Sister Cities framework, the relationship is about more than similarities between destinations. It creates opportunities for residents to encounter another community’s history, traditions, arts, and contemporary life.
Belfast remains one of the 10 international partners currently recognized by Nashville.
4. Magdeburg, Germany
Nashville’s partnership with Magdeburg shows how Sister City relationships can continue evolving long after the original agreement is signed.
Metro Nashville formally approved its Sister City relationship with Magdeburg in 2002.
More than two decades later, the cities are still finding ways to connect.
During the partnership’s 20th-anniversary celebrations, Nashville and Magdeburg launched a photography exchange and Nashville welcomed a delegation from Magdeburg.
The artistic relationship has continued as well. Sister Cities of Nashville reports that its “A Day in the Life” photography exchange between Nashville and Magdeburg received a Sister Cities International award for innovation in arts and culture.
It’s a good example of what these partnerships can become: not simply diplomatic agreements, but long-running collaborations between artists and residents.
5. Taiyuan, China
Taiyuan, in China’s Shanxi Province, officially became one of Nashville’s Sister Cities after the Metropolitan Council approved the relationship in 2007.
The process began earlier. According to Metro Nashville’s resolution, Taiyuan signed a letter of intent in October 2006 to begin official negotiations with Nashville. The resulting partnership was intended to advance friendship and understanding through person-to-person exchange.
Taiyuan gives Nashville another connection to a city with a very different cultural and historical background, creating opportunities for international understanding that would be difficult to replicate without direct city-to-city relationships.
6. Mendoza, Argentina
Nashville’s South American connection comes through Mendoza, Argentina.
Located near the Andes, Mendoza is internationally associated with Argentina’s wine industry and is an important center for regional culture and tourism.
Nashville, meanwhile, has developed an international tourism identity around music, entertainment, food, history, and Southern culture. That makes the relationship an interesting meeting of two destinations with highly recognizable identities of their own.
The relationship has also resulted in direct cultural exchange. Nashville students traveled to Mendoza in June 2023 for a two-week immersive program.
Programs like these show how the Sister Cities network can turn an abstract international connection into a personal experience for young Nashvillians.
7. Tamworth, Australia
Few of Nashville’s international relationships have a connection as immediately recognizable as Tamworth, Australia.
Tamworth has a major country-music identity of its own and is home to the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Nashville, of course, is internationally known as Music City and remains one of the world’s most influential centers of country music and songwriting.
That shared musical heritage gives the two communities an obvious cultural bridge.
Although separated by thousands of miles, Nashville and Tamworth demonstrate how music can become a common language between communities. For visitors who associate Nashville primarily with country music, Tamworth is perhaps one of the easiest Sister City relationships to understand: two cities on opposite sides of the world connected by a genre that has become part of both communities’ identities.
8. Kamakura, Japan
Kamakura adds another historical dimension to Nashville’s international partnerships.
The Japanese city is known for its temples, shrines, historic sites, and importance in Japan’s medieval history. Nashville’s history is very different, but both destinations understand the value of preserving places and stories that connect modern residents with the past.
Through cultural exchange, the Sister Cities program provides an opportunity to look beyond those differences and learn how another community preserves and interprets its heritage.
Kamakura remains one of Nashville’s 10 current Sister City partners.
9. Chengdu, China
Chengdu is Nashville’s second Sister City connection in China, alongside Taiyuan.
The relationship broadens Nashville’s connections with one of the world’s largest countries and gives residents another avenue for educational, cultural, and professional exchange.
Chengdu is currently recognized by Metro Nashville and Sister Cities of Nashville as one of the city’s 10 international Sister City partners.
Its inclusion also demonstrates how Nashville’s international network continues to develop rather than remaining fixed around the partnerships established during the program’s early years.
10. Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Nashville’s newest Sister City relationship has one of the strongest local connections of all.
Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, became Nashville’s 10th Sister City in 2023 and its first Sister City in the Middle East.
The relationship is particularly meaningful because Nashville is home to a substantial Kurdish community. When Metro Council approved the relationship, its resolution cited an estimate of more than 20,000 Kurdish residents in Nashville and noted their contributions to the community.
The partnership developed through direct visits in both directions. An Erbil delegation visited Nashville, and a Nashville delegation traveled to Erbil in May 2023 to explore collaboration involving healthcare, law, higher education, arts and culture, tourism, and government.
The relationship was formally signed in September 2023. Areas identified for cooperation have included culture, education, healthcare, technology, trade, sports, law, and administration.
Of all Nashville’s international partnerships, Erbil perhaps demonstrates most clearly that Sister City relationships can also reflect the people who already call Nashville home.
What About Nashville’s Friendship Cities?
Nashville also currently recognizes two Friendship Cities: Crouy, France, and Port de la Selva, Spain.
These are listed separately from Nashville’s 10 official Sister City partners.
Together, the Sister City and Friendship City relationships expand Nashville’s international connections beyond the places most visitors normally associate with Music City.
What Do Nashville’s Sister Cities Have in Common?
At first glance, Belfast, Mendoza, Chengdu, Kamakura, Tamworth, and Erbil may seem to have little in common.
That’s partly the point.
Sister Cities are not about finding identical versions of Nashville in other countries. They’re about creating relationships between communities with different histories and traditions and then finding meaningful areas where their residents can connect.
For Nashville, those connections have taken the form of:
- Student and educational exchanges
- Arts and cultural collaborations
- Professional exchanges
- International delegations
- Travel and hospitality
- Community service
- Civic and cultural learning
Sister Cities of Nashville describes its broader mission as connecting Nashvillians with people around the world through mutual understanding, respect, and cooperation.
That mission has translated into real programs. Nashville-area students have traveled abroad, international students have stayed with Nashville families, artists have collaborated across borders, and delegations have explored new professional and civic partnerships.
Nashville Is More International Than You Might Think
It’s easy to think of Nashville primarily through its most famous landmarks: Broadway’s honky-tonks, the Ryman Auditorium, Music Row, country music, and Tennessee history.
But Nashville’s story has never existed in isolation.
The city’s Sister Cities reveal another side of Music City — one connected to communities throughout Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and the Middle East.
From Nashville and Tamworth’s musical identities to the city’s deep Kurdish connection behind its partnership with Erbil, every relationship adds another chapter to Nashville’s evolving story.
And that’s part of what makes exploring Nashville so interesting. Behind familiar streets and landmarks are stories connecting the city to people, cultures, and events far beyond Tennessee.
When you explore Nashville with Nashville Experience Tours, you’re not simply seeing where history happened. You’re discovering the people, communities, cultures, and connections that helped shape the city into what it is today.
Ready to discover more of the stories behind Music City? Explore Nashville Experience Tours and experience Nashville beyond the usual tourist stops.