THESSALONIKI – The municipality of Thessaloniki is preparing to “build” a “fraternal relationship” with Fort Lauderdale, FL, as the two cities have many elements and characteristics in common, such as, for example, their ports, the hosting of many students, the organization of exhibitions and conferences, film festivals, but also tourist traffic.

The municipality of Thessaloniki is preparing to twin with Fort Lauderdale, a city which has – among other things – the large Greek Orthodox parish of St. Demetrios, the St. Demetrios Greek School, and 10 large Greek restaurants.

The contacts with the corresponding municipal authority of the U.S. city have already progressed and the interest in twinning with Thessaloniki was expressed through the Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis who is of Greek descent, while the matter will be discussed at the next meeting of the Thessaloniki municipal council.

This will be the 31st city with which the municipality of Thessaloniki will be twinned and it is estimated that it will have multifaceted benefits and multiplier effects for both cities. The purpose is to further promotion and development in matters of culture, education, tourism, urban development, environment, sports, technology, and health.

The first twinning in the history of the municipality of Thessaloniki was again with a city in the USA, Hartford, CT, a relationship that has been in place since 1962. Over the years, twinnings with several more cities followed, including Alexandria in Egypt, Melbourne in Australia, Calcutta in India, Nice and Marseille in France, San Francisco in the U.S., Tel Aviv in Israel, Busan in South Korea, and Tianjin in China, etc.

The municipality of Thessaloniki’s most recent twinning was with Durrës, Albania, which took place in April 2012.