Terms

Last updated 20 October 2026

Twinhoods shows a city using the neighbourhood names of a city you know. It’s free to use. These terms cover using the site, adding a city with “Add my city” and buying a coffee.

• Using Twinhoods
• What the map is
• Map data
• Add my city
• Coffee
• Posters
• The legal bits

Using Twinhoods

Twinhoods is run by Space Island Ltd (“we”). You can use and share it freely for personal, non-commercial purposes. Please don’t try to break or overload the site, scrape it in bulk or use it to mislead people. We may change, pause or stop any part of it. How we handle data is in the privacy policy.

What the map is: playful guesswork

• Neighbourhood profiles are opinions, written with AI help and checked against OpenStreetMap. Matches like “the Jordaan is a bit like Cihangir” are a fun way to get a feel for a place: vibes, not facts.
• Descriptions, traits and matches can be wrong, out of date or miss what locals would say. Don’t rely on them for decisions about where to live, stay, invest or go at night. They are light-hearted impressions, not facts, and not travel, safety or any other advice.
• Shapes follow open boundary data where there is some, and elsewhere are drawn around each neighbourhood’s heart and cut by water. They show roughly where a place is, not where it legally begins or ends.
• Spotted a mistake? Tell us at hello@twinhoods.com and we’ll fix it.

Map data

Map © OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles, data from OpenStreetMap. Neighbourhood boundaries and some coordinates © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL). The shapes and coordinates derived from OpenStreetMap, as served at twinhoods.com/data/, are a derivative database, also available under the ODbL 1.0; the descriptions, tags and trait scores served with them are Twinhoods content and not part of that licence. Some New Zealand boundaries are sourced from the LINZ Data Service (NZ Suburbs and Localities), licensed for reuse under CC BY 4.0. Some UK boundaries come from the Office for National Statistics (electoral wards) and the Scottish Government (intermediate zones), under the Open Government Licence v3.0; they contain OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2024. Some Japanese boundaries are edited by Twinhoods from census small-area boundaries. Source: Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan (e-Stat), used under the Government of Japan Standard Terms of Use (compatible with CC BY 4.0). The cities you can add come from GeoNames, under CC BY 4.0. The Twinhoods name, design and code are ours; the open-source code and fonts the app is built with keep their own licences.

Add my city

“Add my city” lets you pledge for a city that isn’t on the map yet. A pledge is a pre-order: you pay for the service of adding a city to the map, and you get your money back if it hasn’t won within 60 days, or isn’t on the map within 7 days of winning. It is not a donation, and pledging for a city gives you no share in anything. Add my city is run by Space Island Ltd under the Twinhoods name (“Twinhoods by Space Island”).

How it works

• You pick a city and an amount, worth roughly $5 to $250, shown in your own currency where we can (otherwise in US dollars), and pay straight away.
• At each departure, the city in the lead joins the map, however little it has. Departures fall on a grid of times that includes midnight UTC (03:00 Istanbul time). How far apart they are depends on how many cities have pledges worth $50 or more: about 24 hours while one city or none does, down to 2 hours while 12 or more do. So there may be more than one departure a day, or none on a given day. The time of the next departure is always shown in the app before it happens.
• An announced departure doesn’t move, with one exception: if the lead changes in the last 5 minutes before it, the departure waits until 5 minutes after that change (15 minutes after the announced time at most), so everyone has a chance to answer.
• A city whose pledges add up to $250 (or the same in other currencies) joins the map straight away, without waiting for a departure. Only a few cities a day can join this way; after that, a city at $250 waits for the departures like any other city.
• To compare pledges made in different currencies, we count each one in US dollars at the European Central Bank’s rate of the day it was made.

Who you pay

In most countries your payment is processed by Stripe as the merchant of record (“Sold through Link”): Stripe takes the payment, handles sales tax and VAT, and sends you the receipt, and we provide the service. In some countries you pay Space Island Ltd directly through Stripe. Either way the price you see includes any tax, and these terms apply to the service.

When your city joins

We usually add a winning city within a few minutes. In rare cases (a technical problem, or a check we have to make first) it can take longer, up to 7 days. If your city isn’t on the map within 7 days of winning, you get your pledge back in full. Once your city is on the map, the service has been delivered and your pledge is final.

Refunds and moving a pledge

• Cancel any time until your city wins for a full refund: from “Your pledges” in the app on the device you pledged from, from the link in our emails or by emailing hello@twinhoods.com.
• After it wins. Until your city is on the map, you can still cancel by emailing hello@twinhoods.com, and we’ll refund you in full.
• 60 days. If the city you pledged for hasn’t won within 60 days of your payment, we refund you in full automatically. We email you a week before.
• Move instead. Until your city wins you can move your pledge to another city still in the race, up to twice, with no new payment. It then counts for that city; its 60 days still run from when you paid.
• If you pay just after your city has already won, it’s coming anyway, and we refund you in full.
• Refunds go back to the way you paid, for the full amount in the currency you paid. They usually arrive within 5 to 10 days. On a day with unusually many cancellations, some refunds are sent the next day.
• If we couldn’t add a city that won, we’d refund everyone who pledged for it in full.

Your right to withdraw

If you are a consumer, the law gives you 14 days to change your mind. Here you can cancel for a full refund any time until your city wins, however long that takes, and after it wins by emailing us until it’s on the map. When you pledge you expressly ask us to start adding your city as soon as it wins, and you acknowledge that you lose your right to cancel once your city is on the map; the pledge form asks you to confirm this. None of this affects your other legal rights.

What you get

The city you pledged for is added to Twinhoods with its neighbourhoods, matched like every other city, free for everyone to use. City data is written with AI help and checked against OpenStreetMap; it can contain mistakes, which we fix when told. Descriptions are light-hearted impressions, not facts or travel or safety advice.

Your name

If you’re the first to give a name for a city, it is shown publicly as the city’s starter in the race. Use your own name or a nickname: not someone else’s, and nothing offensive, hateful or promotional (no links). We may hide or change any name without notice; your pledge still counts.

Emails

We email you a receipt, when your city wins and when it’s on the map, and about refunds. We also send short race updates (when your city loses the lead, and a week before a refund); every email has a link to stop those.

Your data

Payment details are handled by Stripe and never reach us. We keep your pledge (city, amount and currency, your email, the name you gave, and Stripe’s references) to run the race, email you and refund you. Details and how long we keep it are in the privacy policy.

Coffee

• “Buy me a coffee” takes you to the coffee page of Space Island, the studio that makes Twinhoods (spaceisland.ltd/coffee). A coffee there is a voluntary one-off payment to Space Island Ltd. It’s a thank-you, not a purchase: you get nothing in return, and it doesn’t change what you see or which cities are added.
• Payments are taken by Stripe. Your bank may add its own fees.
• Changed your mind, or paid by mistake? Email hello@twinhoods.com within 14 days and we’ll refund it in full.

Posters

• Any map can be downloaded as a poster image for free, for your own personal use.
• Printed posters are made to order for you by our print partner Gelato and shipped from a printer near you. Choose your delivery country to see the price, including shipping, before you pay. Payment is taken by Stripe and printing starts automatically after payment. It usually arrives within 2 to 8 working days where it’s printed in your country, up to 3 weeks where it ships from abroad, and within 30 days at most; we email you when tracking is available.
• Because each poster is printed to your choice of cities, you can’t cancel just because you changed your mind once printing has started.
• If your poster arrives damaged, misprinted or doesn’t arrive, email hello@twinhoods.com within 30 days, with a photo if it’s damaged, and we’ll reprint it or refund you in full.
• The map on a poster is the same playful guesswork as the site: names and matches can be wrong.

The legal bits

• Twinhoods is provided as it is. We do our best to keep it working and accurate but can’t promise it always will be.
• We aren’t responsible for losses that come from relying on the map’s content. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can’t be limited by law, such as for death or injury caused by negligence, or fraud, and nothing takes away your rights as a consumer.
• If we change these terms, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. Changes don’t affect pledges or payments already made.
• These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you live elsewhere in the UK, in the EU or anywhere else, you keep the protection of your local consumer law and can bring a claim in your local courts.