OXFORD officially has a new twin city: Wroclaw in Poland.

It is the fourth largest city in the country and is the first time Oxford has twinned up with a new partner since Perm, Russia in 1995.

A fellow university city, it is based in the west of Poland, has produced nine Nobel Prize winners since the start of the 20th century and has a student population of about 130,000.

The city is pronounced ‘vrots-wahf’ and has only been part of Poland since 1945. Before then it was the German city of Breslau. But following the defeat of the Nazis, the German population left and was replaced by Poles.

Oxford’s Deputy Lord Mayor, Sajjad Malik, signed an official agreement with the president of Wroclaw, Rafal Dutkiewicz, on Wednesday.

Mr Malik said: “It is a historic moment for both cities to be twinning and hopefully this will be as successful as our others.

"We hope that this will help encourage cultural exchange, sports opportunities, and will help to encourage tourists from Wrocław to visit Oxford.”

The meeting followed a visit in June by the chairman of Wroclaw City Council, Jacek Ossowski. He met representatives from Oxford University, Oxford Brookes University and Oxford City Council to discuss the twinning arrangements.

Earlier this year, Oxford City Council said it was seeking to partner up with a Polish city ahead of Brexit.

It said it also wanted to recognise the contribution made to the city by its Polish population. After English, Polish is the most spoken language here.

The Oxford Polish Association and the Oxford University Polish Society play a key role in the city's cultural offering and there are Polish shops, a Polish Saturday school and a handful of restaurants.

A delegation from Oxford joined Mr Malik on the trip.

He was joined by Mary Clarkson, the city council’s executive board member for culture and city centre, who visited Wroclaw’s Covered Market. She it said ‘faces similar challenges and competition from supermarkets’, like Oxford’s.

They were joined by Paul Inman, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University; Paula Redway, the city council’s cultural development manager and the chairwoman of the Oxford Polish Association, Ewa Gluza.

Oxford is also twinned with Leiden in the Netherlands; Grenoble in France; Leon in Nicaragua and Bonn in Germany.