Our Sister Cities
Ueda is a city located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 April 2019, the city had an estimated population of 157,480. It is some 40 kilometers from the prefectural capital of Nagano City and 190 kilometers from Tokyo. A bullet train up to Ueda from Tokyo takes around 90 minutes.
During the Edo period, Ueda was a castle town and headquarters of Ueda Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate. There is abundant natural beauty, hot spring towns and samurai-related history.
Ueda, Japan
Broomfield was introduced to Maruko and encouraged to establish a sister city relationship by Up With People (UWP) when they were headquartered in Broomfield. At the time, two influential Japanese sit on the board of UWP: Dr. Toyoda (former head of Toyota Motors) and Mrs. Naoko Shirane (a member of the Mitsui family which started the Japanese international trading company by the same name.) An ongoing relationship with Maruko was seen as an opportunity to establish cultural ties and exchanges with a community in Japan and with Japanese business that could potentially invest in Broomfield.
How did Ueda and Broomfield become Sister Cities?
The mayors of Broomfield and Maruko, Japan signed the first "Friendship City" document in May 2001. In 2005, Maruko and other municipalities merged to become part of the larger community of Ueda. Broomfield's and Ueda's mayors signed an updated “Friendship City” agreement in 2006.
Since its inception, the Broomfield Sister Cities has organized annual Student Exchanges Program where U.S. high school students visit Ueda and Japanese middle school students visit Broomfield every other year for over 20 years. The delegation of Japanese business representatives visited Broomfield and Denver Metro in 2012 and 2017. In 2020, the 20th Anniversary was celebrated during the pandemic and started the virtual art and culture exchanges.
Broomfield Sister Cities Organization is a registered 501c3 tax exempt nonprofit organization.
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