Changsha county and Montargis, France officially became sister cities on Aug 27 during the opening of a new museum to commemorate the Chinese students who lived and worked in the French city in the 1920s.

Zhang Zuolin, the acting mayor of Changsha county, represented the Hunanese city at the ceremony.

Ties between Changsha and Montargis, located about 100 kilometers south of Paris, go back as far as the 1920s, when the French city hosted more than 300 Chinese students.

Among those students were some of the founding fathers of the Communist Party of China, including legendary leader Deng Xiaoping.

The newly-opened museum was formerly an apartment block that offered lodging to students from Hunan during the 1920s, such as famous revolutionary martyrs Cai Hesen and Xiang Jingyu.

Hunan-based company Huatian Group bought the building in December 2014 and worked with Hunan provincial government to convert it into a museum to honor the forefathers of the Chinese revolution and strengthen ties between the French and Chinese peoples.