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: backing a new city with Add my city, and buying us a coffee.

180 cities across Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Oceania, with 4,467 neighbourhoods between them. Each city has around 18 to 26 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? See 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, in any modern browser, phone, tablet or computer. There’s 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 ???: nothing in your city comes close, and it keeps its own name underneath.

How alike the two profiles are, as “% same vibe”. Close to 100 means nearly identical. Two places picked at random score about 45, and a typical match about 75. 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 back a city that isn’t on Twinhoods yet with an amount worth $5 to $1,000, in your own currency. 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”.

You can back any place with 100,000 or more people that isn’t on the map yet, over 4,000 of them.

At each departure, the city in the lead joins. There’s one at least every day at 21:00 Istanbul time, and they come more often as more cities gather backing. The countdown in the app shows the next one; once it’s announced it doesn’t move, except for a final call: if the lead changes in the last 5 minutes, the departure waits 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.

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 isn’t added within 60 days. Backing a city gives you no share in anything; the city you backed becomes 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 and sends the receipt (from Link); 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, and within a day at the latest. 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 it, or move your pledge to a city that’s closer to winning.

Yes, any time until your city is on the map. Cancel for a full refund, or move your pledge to another city still in the race with no new payment (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 is on the map, the service is delivered and the pledge is final. Write to us if something went wrong. Full details are in the terms.

Only if you give one. The first backer of a city who gives 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 us 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.