Logo for Seattle Sister Cities program

Seattle sister cities – an overview

Background In 1956 President Dwight Eisenhower started Sister Cities International as part of a White House conference on citizen diplomacy. The broad idea behind developing sister city relationships is to create a person-to-person exchange between Americans and citizens of other countries based on cultural, educational, information and trade exchanges. Americans can and should learn about and…

Sihanoukville, Cambodia - view of the city. Photo by Dmitry Makeev.

Sihanoukville, Cambodia: Seattle sister city

Sihanoukville, Cambodia – Seattle sister city since 1999 Seattle’s most recent sister city is Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The relationship has been active since 1999 when Sihanoukville became Seattle’s 21st sister city. The Seattle-Sihanoukville Sister City Association provides a central source of communication between the two sister cities. Projects in the past have included: raising funds to build…