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Twin Cities

Twin Cities

12 3.8
A common name for the two nearby cities Saint Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota, United States
  • noun
  • /twɪn ˈsɪtiz/
translation icon : ciudades gemelas
  • Many people from different backgrounds live in the Twin Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
  • Twin Cities area
  • Twin Cities highlights tour
  • Twin Cities metropolitan

And I was in the Twin Cities at the time, in Minneapolis, and he sent me a care package of unscented products.

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Examples

  • "My target audiences," he claims in a press interview in the Twin Cities, "are families and teens."

    Academic text (2009)
  • The Twin Cities highlights tour is scheduled for 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.

    Academic text (2004)
  • In the Twin Cities that evening, he took a bus over to the university.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • L&S plans to establish a presence in the Twin Cities in 2013.

    Blog text (5)
  • Perhaps that area of the Twin Cities will become home to our next "brewery boom"?

    Blog text (27)
  • And you're just minutes away from one of the best medical facilities in the Twin Cities.

  • We have recently returned to the Twin Cities from Boston, where Josh gained his Juris Doctor.

    Blog text (8)
  • Participating schools were located in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area and represented several districts and counties.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Vijay is very active in the Twin Cities area, where he judges for local clubs as well as international exhibitions.

    Academic text (2007)
  • Lockheed Martin installed the first system at the Twin Cities Metro Hub in Minneapolis in January, where it has completed testing.

    Academic text (2004)

Surface Forms

Twin Cities singular
Twin Cities plural

Morphology

twin + city

The phrase is compositionally transparent: 'twin' (paired, matching) combined with 'cities' clearly signals two cities that form a corresponding pair or linked metropolitan area, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer this general meaning. The specific reference to Minneapolis and Saint Paul is a conventionalized place-name usage but does not reduce the overall predictability of the phrase's basic sense, and similar constructions exist cross-linguistically.

Etymology

Twin Cities comes from the idea of a twin pair of cities: Saint Paul and Minneapolis are two separate cities very close together that grew side by side like twins. So today Twin Cities means those two places 'together' as one large city area.