Questions

A map that translates one city into another. Pick the city you know (“I know”) and the one you’re curious about (“Show me”). Every neighbourhood of the second city is labelled with the name of the most similar neighbourhood in yours, so you get a feel for a place in words you already understand.

Tap any place to see why it got its name: what the two have in common, how they differ and how alike they are.

Yes. No account, no ads, no paywall. The only things that cost money are optional: adding a city with Add my city, and a coffee for the maker through Buy me a coffee.

180 cities at launch, across Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Oceania, with more than 7,000 neighbourhoods between them. Each city has around 30 to 55 places (more for giants like London, Tokyo or São Paulo, fewer for small ones like Venice), covering the centre as well as the suburbs a local would mention.

Any of them can be the city you know or the city you explore. Not there yet? You can add it with Add my city.

Press Share, or “Share this match” on a place. On a phone it opens your share sheet; on a computer it copies the link.

The address in your browser is the link, too: /istanbul/amsterdam shows Amsterdam translated into Istanbul, and /istanbul/amsterdam/jordaan opens the Jordaan on top of it.

Yes. It works in any modern browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to install. On a phone, the menu at the top right has the theme, sound, Add my city and “How it works”.

Yes. Each label shows the place’s real name in small type under its new one. Zoom in to see them all; from further out they appear when you point at or tap a place.

It picks the city on the map closest to you as the city you know. Your browser asks first, and your location stays on your device (more under Privacy).

Every neighbourhood has a profile of 17 traits, each scored from 0 to 100 on one scale for the whole world: nightlife, creative, upscale, historic, touristy, business, family, green, waterside, multicultural, young, traditional, gritty, food, shopping, LGBTQ+ and density. How central a place is counts too.

Each trait is also compared within its own city, so a quiet city’s liveliest street can still match your city’s liveliest street, even if it’s calmer in absolute terms.

So the map reads like a real translation rather than ten places all called “Soho”. Twinhoods doesn’t just give each place its single closest twin; it finds the set of pairings that fits the whole map best, with every name from your city used once. Sometimes that means a place gets its second-best twin because its first choice fits a neighbour even better. The place’s card tells you when that happened.

When your city has fewer neighbourhoods than the one you’re exploring, some places are left without a name. A leftover place can share a name with a similar neighbour right next to it, so the name covers both as one bigger area; these are marked “Shared name”. If no neighbour is similar enough, the place shows ???: your city has run out of names that fit, so the place keeps its own name underneath, and its card tells you which place in your city comes closest.

How alike the two profiles are, as “% same vibe”. Close to 100 means nearly identical. Two places picked at random score about 50, and a typical match about 80. The map’s overall fit is the average of all its matches.

A few reasons it can happen:

• Your city may simply have nothing like that place; then even the best name is a stretch. A low number is the hint.
• Its best twin went to a neighbour that fits it even better, because each name is used once.
• The profile itself may be off. Profiles are impressions, and we sometimes get them wrong.

If you think it’s the profile, please tell us.

No. Where OpenStreetMap or an open government dataset has a boundary for a neighbourhood we use it; otherwise the shape is drawn around the neighbourhood’s heart, sharing edges with its neighbours, and cut by rivers and coasts. They show roughly where a place is, not where it legally begins or ends.

Each city is researched and written with AI help (Anthropic’s Claude), then checked: every file is validated against a set of rules, and each neighbourhood’s point is compared with OpenStreetMap and moved or flagged when they disagree.

They are light-hearted impressions, not facts, and not travel or safety advice.

Email hello@twinhoods.com with the city, the neighbourhood and what’s wrong: a pin in the wrong spot, a description that misses the mark or feels hurtful, a missing neighbourhood or a match that makes no sense. Screenshots or links help.

We read everything and fix data mistakes as soon as we can, usually within a few days. Anything hurtful comes first.

A race to decide which city joins the map next. You put an amount worth $5 to $250, in your own currency, towards a city that isn’t on Twinhoods yet. At each departure the city in the lead joins the map, however little it has; a city that reaches $250 goes straight onto it. Open it with the “Add my city” button, or search for your city in the city picker and choose “Add”.

Any place with 50,000 or more people that isn’t on the map yet can join the race: over 7,500 of them.

At each departure, the city in the lead joins. How often they come depends on how busy the race is: about once a day while few cities have $50 or more behind them, and up to every 2 hours when many do. The countdown in the app always shows the next one.

Once a departure is announced it doesn’t move, except for a final call: if the lead changes in its last 5 minutes, it waits until 5 minutes after that change (15 minutes at most), so the other side can answer.

A city whose pledges add up to $250 (or the same in other currencies) joins straight away, whatever the time. On a very busy day only the first few do; after that, a city at $250 waits for the departures like any other city.

No. A pledge is a pre-order: you pay for a city to be added to the map, and get your money back if it hasn’t won within 60 days. Paying for a city gives you no share in anything; once it’s on the map, it’s free for everyone to use.

When you pledge, through Stripe, in your own currency where we can (otherwise US dollars), tax included. In most countries Stripe processes the payment as the merchant of record, so your receipt comes from Link, Stripe’s payment service; we add no fees. To compare cities fairly, each pledge counts in US dollars at that day’s rate.

Once your city has won, we usually add it to the map within a few minutes. We email you when it’s there.

Then you get your money back. If your city hasn’t won within 60 days of your payment, we refund it in full, automatically. We email you a week before, in case you want to share the city or move your pledge to one that’s closer to winning.

Yes, any time until your city wins. Cancel for a full refund, or move your pledge to another city still in the race with no new payment, up to twice (its 60 days still run from when you paid). Open Add my city on the device you pledged from and use “Your pledges”, or the link in our emails from any device. You can also email us.

Once your city has won, it usually reaches the map within a few minutes. Until it’s there you can still cancel by emailing hello@twinhoods.com, and we’ll refund you in full. Once it’s on the map, the service is delivered and the pledge is final; if something went wrong, write to us. Full details are in the terms.

Only if you give one. The first supporter of a city to give a name is shown publicly as its starter in the race. Use your own name or a nickname: not someone else’s, and nothing offensive, hateful or promotional. Links, email addresses and @handles are removed automatically, and we may hide or change a name without notice; your pledge still counts.

No cookies, no accounts, no ads and no third-party trackers. Our server counts visits in daily totals (for example, how many visits looked at Lisbon), without storing your IP address or anything that identifies you.

Only if you press “Near me” does your browser ask to share your location. It’s used on your device to pick the nearest city and is never sent to us or anyone else.

The privacy policy explains exactly what we handle, including pledges and payments, how long we keep it and how to have it removed.

Share a map with a friend who’s moving or travelling: that’s what it’s for. If Twinhoods made you smile, you can also buy me a coffee. It helps pay for the servers and the time spent getting neighbourhoods right, and you can get a full refund within 14 days if you change your mind.

Space Island Ltd, a small studio registered in England and Wales.