The Sister Cities program “promotes peace through mutual respect, understanding and cooperation, one individual, one community at a time.” — Sister Cities International

Columbia Association will sign a Sister Cities Agreement with the Chinese city of Liyang, People’s Republic of China, on Monday, September 10 at Historic Oakland, 5430 Vantage Point Road, in Columbia. The Mayor of Liyang, Huaqin Xu, will be visiting Columbia with a delegation and will sign the agreement with CA President & CEO, Milton Matthews.

The search for a Chinese sister city began four years ago when members of the approximately 8,000-member, Chinese-American community in Howard County came to CA asking to partner with a sister city in China. They discussed eight Chinese cities as possibilities and decided on Liyang, which was seeking a sister city on the East Coast of the U.S. and is located in Jiangsu Province, a leader in education, tourism, technology and finance. Columbia and Liyang also share common concerns, such as high standards for education and preservation of green spaces. Located in southern China, 150 miles west of Shanghai, it is considered a small city by Chinese standards, with a population of 889,000. It joins cities in France, Spain, Ghana and Haiti as Columbia’s fifth sister city.

The relationship between Columbia and Liyang will allow residents to meet and explore each others’ cities for the mutual benefit and understanding of both. The Columbia/Liyang sister-city program will foster global engagement and peer-to-peer exchanges at every level — cultural, educational and municipal — resulting in travel abroad programs for youth and adults, artistic  and cultural exchanges, economic development and tourism promotion.