Los hermanamientos en Extremadura

Abstract

The twinning of towns is defined as “the special relationship between two local communities which share something and support mutually” whith the intention of “promoting horizontal relationship of friendship among towns , and contributing to the knowledge of one another and the building of better international relationships”. In spite of the importance of this phenomenon, only 6’8% of the total amount of towns in Spain are twinned especially with European counterparts: French , Italian , and Portuguese. Undoubtly, this type of cooperation of local character is extending through all Extremadura in the last five years; But this is not exclusively limited to towns with more than 5000 inhabitants, quite the contrary, as the twinning is extending in smaller villages, even though the paradigm of this activity is Mérida, with a high experience in this field.