Sister Cities

Sister city relationships foster communications across borders and cooperative programmes of mutual exchange of ideas, people and materials in a variety of cultural, educational, youth, sports, municipal, professional and technical projects.

Sister city relationships

The Gisborne district enjoys 3 sister city relationships, all of which were developed in the 1980s. These are:

• Palm Desert California, USA
• Nonoichi Town, Japan
• Gisborne Town, Victoria, Australia

The sister cities have a garden at our Botanical Gardens, they each have flora of their country.

Palm Desert, California USA

Exchanges of art work and staff between Gisborne and Palm Desert occur on a regular basis. Photographs of the Gisborne district were featured in a public display at Palm Desert.

Visit the website of City of Palm Desert

Nonoichi Town, Japan

This is the most active of the 3 relationships.

Annual student exchanges, invariably home-hosted in Nonoichi near the University City of Kanazawa, are well-received. The Japanese people always establish a good affinity with our Māori people.

Gisborne Town, Victoria Australia

Gisborne Town is based in the Macedon Ranges Shire, 80 km north of Melbourne, Australia.  A New Zealand native shrub garden is being created there. 
We have an Australian garden at our Botanical Gardens. 

Visit the website of Macedon Ranges Shire Council

Sister Ports

Gisborne has sister port links with:

• Gamagori, Japan.
• Rizhao, Shandong Province, PR China.