Sister cities

Albany has five official sister city agreements and two other twin-city relationships. The city of Nijmegen, Netherlands connected with Albany following World War II. With the help of the catholic university in Albany, the Catholic University of Nijmegen (Radboud University Nijmegen) rebuild it's partly destroyed library, with over 50,000 books being donated to the Dutch university. To show its gratitude for post-war assistance, the city sent Albany 50,000 tulip bulbs in 1948; this act led to the establishment of the annual Tulip Festival. Most of the other connections were made in the 1980s during Mayor Whalen's term in office as part of his cultural expansion program. The official sister cities are:

Nassau, Bahamas; Nijmegen, Netherlands; Quebec City, Canada; Tula, Russia; and Verona, Italy.

The additional twin-city relationships are with:

Ghent, Belgium Extremadura (province), Spain.