Birmingham and Frankfurt Mark 60 Years of Friendship with New Digital Portal
A new digital portal opens in Birmingham city centre this week, linking residents with Frankfurt for interactive sessions until November 4.
By Aisha Mahmood
••2 min read
AI
Generic image of a digital screen inside a freight container in a city square.
Birmingham and Frankfurt are celebrating 60 years of their twinning relationship with the launch of a new digital portal in the city centre this week.
The initiative, named Sister Cities Dialogue, will link the two cities via a large digital screen housed within a freight container in Hippodrome Square, Southside. This portal goes live on Friday, 23 October 2026, and will host a variety of interactive sessions until 4 November.
Established in 1966, the twinning signifies six decades of friendship. The digital project connects Frankfurt with three of its twin cities: Birmingham, Krakow, and Lviv. It allows citizens to see, speak, and engage with people from the partner cities in real time, fostering understanding and discovering common ground.
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"Birmingham’s friendship with Frankfurt has grown over 60 years through educational exchanges and cultural encounters – such as the Frankfurt Christmas Market, which has been a festive fixture for 26 years. The Sister Cities Dialogue project will help bring citizens in both cities closer through conversation, engagement and understanding – enabling us all to discover common ground."
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"Our partnership with Birmingham has been part of Frankfurt’s international identity for six decades, and it has never depended on official agreements alone, but on people. It is cities and their citizens who hold Europe together and Sister Cities Dialogue does exactly that, by linking Frankfurt with Birmingham, it gives our citizens a direct way to talk and listen to each other."
A special launch event is scheduled for Friday at 3:30pm in Hippodrome Square, where the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Cllr Zaker Choudhry, will officially open the portal. The portal will be open Monday to Friday, between 10am and 8pm, offering free sessions on topics ranging from street art and music history to wine tasting and community conversations.
Further details on the sessions, running from 23 October to 4 November, can be found on Frankfurt am Main’s website. The page can be translated into English by clicking the UK flag icon.
