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Twin city Kanazawa

For more than 50 years, the City of Ghent has had a strong partnership with the Japanese city of Kanazawa.

Kenroku-en tuin met kotojilantaarn, Kanazawa

Kanazwa, a city of crafts

Kanazawa is a sister city of Ghent since 1971. Kanazawa was founded in 1583 as a castle town and currently has more than 465.000 inhabitants as the capital city of the lshilkawa Prefecture. Kanazawa was designated as an UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art for its 22 different traditional crafts such as Kaga-yuzen silk dying, gold leaf, lacquer ware and ceramic. In Japan, Kanazawa is a leading touristic city attracting more than 8 million tourists a year, partly due to its world-renowned 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art.

Kanazawa and Ghent are quite similar cities, since they both are authentic cities loaded with historical and cultural heritage and are recognized by UNESCO as 'creative cities'. Kanazawa and Ghent combine both their rich history and their everyday modern city life in their own and creative way. lnhabitants of Ghent and Kanazawa are known to be bon vivants, with a heart for food and culture. 

In Ghent you can find symbols representing Kanazawa, such as the Kotoji lantern in the Citadelpark, a present for the 35th twinning anniversary, and the Ransho Garden in the courtyard of Blandijn at the Department of Japanology. With this garden, Kanazawa participated in the Flower Festival 'Floraliën' of 2016, which had Japan as its guest of honour, and gifted this garden to Ghent to celebrate their 45th twinning anniversary. Similarly, symbols of Ghent can be seen in Kanazawa, such as a bust of the Virgin of Ghent in the Sister City Park and the Dragon of the Ghent Belfry Tower standing proudly on a post office box. 

  • Kotoji Citadelpark reiger
  • Ransho tuin Blandijnberg
  • 2 Show all photos

Main focus of the cooperation 

The main focus of the cooperation between Kanazawa and Ghent are youth exchanges, academic and cultural cooperation, and culinary exchanges and knowledge sharing.

During the online celebration of 50 years of cooperation between Ghent-Kanazawa, the bond between the two cities was reaffirmed by the renewal and signing of the most recent cooperation agreement for the period 2021-2026.

The bond is strengthened by various exchanges between students and the academic world, musicians and artists, athletes, the ambassadors of the Ghent-Kanazawa Supporters Club, (pastry) chefs , etc. The cities inspire one another by sharing knowledge and good practices, to build an inclusive, diverse and sustainable society together. Both cities strive towards a cooperation in which they want to put efforts into realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). 

The sister city relationship gets support by the Japanese embassy's JET-progamme, which offers a chance to Flemish graduates to work as CIR (Coordinator International Relations) at the International Exchange section of the City of Kanazawa. One of their main tasks consists of coordinating the cooperation with Ghent.

50 years Ghent-Kanazawa

Community 

Numerous Ghentians actively cooperate with their counterparts in Kanazaw, which contributes to a bustling dynamic of exchanges and projects. For example, there are cooperation agreements between:

  • Ghent University and Kanazawa University
  • School of Arts Ghent and Kanazawa college of Art
  • HOGENT and Kinjo university
  • The Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (SMAK) and Kanazawa's 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. 

In addition, there are several organisations and citizens which contribute to this active partnership. Since the jazz exchanges between the Ghent Youth Jazz orchestra (GYJO) and the JAZZ-21 youth big band of Kanazawa, both bands became 'sister' big bands.

On the Facebook page Ghent - Kanazawa, news and photos about the collaboration between the two cities are regularly posted.

Ghent-Kanazawa Supporters Club 

Every year, Ghent university (Japanese Language and Culture Department) and School of Arts receive and send students from Kanazawa. These exchanges create a vibrant dynamic in the partnership. A lot of our exchange students also get appointed as ambassadors of the Ghent-Kanazawa Supporters Club and actively contribute to the cooperation and promotion of both cities.