Conurbations 

• Narva municipality

• Ivangorod municipality

Number of inhabitants:

Approximately 78,000 inhabitants, 67,000 of whom on the Estonian side.

Historical and geographical background

Narva and Ivangorod, situated on opposite sides of the river Narva, used to be one and the same town till 1918.
After Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, Narva found itself on the external border of the European Union, then in 2007 of the Schengen area.
Today, Narva is the third biggest town in Estonia with a population of 67,000 inhabitants, 93% of whom are Russian speakers. Ivangorod, on its part, has over 11,000 inhabitants.

Historical and geographical background
The earliest written reference of Narva is in the First Novgorod Chronicle, which in the year 1172 describes a district in Novgorod called Nerevsky or Narovsky konets (yard). Narva and Ivangorod are the major border crossing points between Tallinn and St. Petersburg. It’s about  210 km to Tallinn and 160 km to St. Petersburg.

 Background to the move to cross-border cooperation

Cross-border cooperation between Narva and Ivangorod is very recent. Fruit of the project "Interreg IIIC City Twins Co-operation Network", it really began in August 2006 with the signing of a cooperation agreement which set a number of objectives: the resolution of problems linked with the conduct of projects on an external EU border, networking of interested border parties, development of cooperation actions and exchange of good practices, the development of infrastructures and attracting external investors, efficient use of the facilities for setting up companies, the development of contacts between citizens and organisations, and the use of the towns' assets at cross-border level.

Functioning of cross-border administration

Following the cooperation agreement signed in 2006, Narva and Ivangorod set up a cross-border committee to work on the drafting of a common development strategy. The cross-border committee includes a steering committee and three working groups.

Symbolic projects 

Project "Est Rus Fort Tour": This joint tourist development project, undertaken between 2006 and 2008, helped enhance the value of the cultural and historical heritage, comprising the fortresses situated in both towns. This project is geared towards preparing a joint application of the site to be included in the UNESCO world heritage pre- list.

Project “Narva River Water Routes”: This project, carried out within the framework of the programme Interreg IIIC, is aimed at the tourist promotion and development of routes on the Narva river basin and the integration of Narva-Ivangorod in the  "Network of small ports on the Baltic Sea".

Project “Integrated development of the historical riverside protection area in Narva and Ivangorod/Promenade”: The main objective of the project is integrated development of the historical riverside protection area in Narva/Estonia and Ivangorod/Russia; the sub-objective is creation of possibilities for integrated development of promenade areas by means of implementation of feasibility studies. The project is co-financed from Interreg IIIB programme.

Project “EstRuComService” 2005-2006: The main goal of the project, financed by Phare EBI 2003 is the balanced economic development of cross-border regions in northeast Estonia and northwest Russia for strengthening of partnership and business contacts between SMEs of the region.