19 photos that show why Kyoto and Tokyo were voted the best cities in the world

Last week, Conde Nast Traveler announced its annual Reader's Choice Awards.Over 300,000 readers votedfor what they believed to be the best city in the world, not including those in the US.Of all the cities in the world, the top twowere in the same countryJapan. Kyoto bagged second place while Tokyo took top spot.Despite sharing the same country (and the same letters in their names), Japan's ancient and current capitals are literally a tale of two cities, where tradition juxtaposes the ultra-modern.The aptly nicknamed "city of a thousand years", Kyoto, wasJapan's capital from 794 at the dawn of the Heian period until the Meiji restoration. Despite being the de facto seat of government since 1603, Tokyo was only made capital in 1868, when Japan's feudal shogunate system disintegrated and the Emperorwas installed in the eastern city to restore his dominion over the empire.Since then, Tokyo has exploded.It is now the most populous urban area in the world, according to the Demographia World Urban Areasover 37 million people inhabit the Greater Tokyo Area. In 2014, The Brookings Institution estimated Tokyo's GDP at $1.6 trillion, the highest of any metropolitan area.The result of this polarity is two cities that are each utterly mesmerising and beautiful but in completely different ways. Scroll down to see why they were voted the best in the world.Kyoto is located near the centre of Japan's main island of Honshu, in the Kansai region.Kyoto is probably what you picture when you think of old Japan. Over its long reign as capital, the city accumulated a plethora of buildings and structures fit for an emperor. It has around 1,600 Buddhist temples ' including the Kinkaku-ji (or Golden Pavillion)......and around 400 Shinto shrines (safehouses for sacred artefacts), such as the iconic red gates of Fushimi Inari Taisha.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
Click here to read full news..