INTEREST STORY · CULTURE · CIVIC LIFE
Millbrae has a global map.
A small Peninsula city can have local streets and international relationships at the same time. Millbrae’s sister-city work turns cultural exchange into a civic practice—one maintained by residents, commissions, schools, and shared events.
Story method: The City’s Sister Cities Commission page and work plan maintain the current relationship list and program context. This story explains the civic idea without treating every exchange, visit, or agreement as a current event.
01 · The relationship map
Two kinds of connection, one civic purpose.
The City currently distinguishes sister-city relationships with La Serena, Chile, and Mosta, Malta, from friendship-city agreements with Hanyu, Japan; Taishan, China; Ramallah, Palestine; and Dongguan, China. The distinctions belong to the City’s official description, and the list should be checked there before being repeated elsewhere.
The Commission’s stated mission is to promote understanding of other cultures and an international perspective through cultural and educational exchange. That makes the relationships more than a travel list: they are a local framework for learning how another place sees itself.
Primary source: City of Millbrae Sister Cities Commission ↗.
02 · Why a commission matters
International connection is local work.
The relationship becomes real through people, calendars, and accountable civic roles.
EDUCATION
Exchange creates a reason to learn.
The City describes cultural and educational exchange as part of the Commission’s mission. That can include learning about language, history, public life, and daily routines through another community rather than through an abstract label.
Read the stated mission ↗CIVIC SERVICE
Residents maintain the bridge.
The Commission is a City advisory body with resident membership, terms, meetings, agendas, and minutes. Participation is part of the infrastructure, not a decorative extra.
See City commission pathways ↗PUBLIC RECORD
Relationships have a paper trail.
Work plans, agreements, agendas, and meeting records help distinguish a signed relationship, a planned exchange, a past visit, and a current program.
Browse Sister Cities agendas ↗03 · A little history, carefully labeled
The program has a local history of its own.
The City’s FY 2025–2027 work plan says the Sister Cities Commission began in 2001, after operating as a Sister Cities Committee since 1971. The same document records earlier exchanges and visits, including relationships with Hanyu and the later adoption of Ramallah and Dongguan.
Those dates are useful because they show that civic relationships are built over time. They should still be read as a work-plan account of the program’s history, not as a complete history of every resident, family, or informal cultural connection between Millbrae and another place.
04 · Culture has several homes
Global connection meets the rest of Millbrae’s cultural life.
The Cultural Arts Advisory Committee advises the City on public artwork and promotes cultural enrichment. Its work shows how local cultural policy can include both what a city preserves and what it creates next.
Educational exchange becomes more meaningful when it connects to the places where people already learn: schools, the library, youth programs, and community events.
Restaurants, languages, businesses, religious communities, family networks, and public celebrations may carry international connections that do not appear in a formal City agreement.
Related source: Cultural Arts Advisory Committee ↗. For school and family systems, see the schools guide; for local memory institutions, see history and culture.
05 · How to follow the story
Ask what kind of connection you are reading about.
What relationship did the City formally describe, and when?
What exchange, meeting, event, or educational activity is actually planned?
Who is participating, and what source records the activity?
What can the connection teach residents without claiming to represent every person’s experience?
Use the source registry to keep official records, community stories, and interpretation in their proper roles.
Keep exploring
The global map starts on a local street.
Follow cultural connections into Millbrae’s history, public spaces, schools, businesses, neighborhoods, and civic calendar.
