Which city did you name the greatest on Earth?

The votes have been counted, the results are in. We can reveal that the greatest city in the world is a coastal gem, lying in the shadow of a cloud-hugged mountain. Here wine flows, penguins waddle and – not too far away – majestic beasts roam.

To find out the greatest city in the world, we asked you – our trusted Telegraph Travel readers – to let us know your favourite holiday destinations. 

Over 39,000 readers responded in the Telegraph Travel Awards survey, and there were some big surprises this year.

Brand new entries included the likes of Kyoto, New Orleans and Havana, all disrupting the rankings and entering the top 20. There were some cities rising in popularity year-on-year, too, including Perth, Singapore and St Petersburg. 

But the best city in the world, in your humble opinion, is of course…

Cape Town.

We would love to say we were surprised but, frankly, we were not. This is the seventh consecutive victory for Cape Town – a firm favourite amongst Telegraph Travel readers. The rest of the top ten features some familiar cities, although there are a few notable power shifts.

Vancouver has returned to 2nd place, a position it held for five years before temporarily dropping to 3rd last year. Stealing its spot last year was Tokyo, which has seen a considerable drop from 2nd down to 18th in 2019. Tokyo, what went wrong?

To add shio to the wound, Kyoto has entered the Telegraph Travel Awards for the first time and ranked 3rd. You are clearly enamoured with the slower pace of life, its zen gardens and traditional ryokans (you can, of course, combine both Kyoto and Tokyo – this expert itinerary is a good starting point). Also entering the top ten for the first time are Luang Prabang (in Laos) and New Orleans.

Here’s a look at your 20 favourite cities in the world.

Biggest risers

It was a good year for the long-haul destinations. Australia’s western metropolis, Perth, rose 13 places from 34th up to 21st – the biggest climber of the year. Singapore leapfrogged a number of cities into the top ten, going from 14th place up to 6th, while St Petersburg also climbed six places from 11th to 5th. Moscow and Istanbul each climbed four places, while Sydney and Vancouver hopped up one place.

The conclusion we draw from this is that, for 2019, Australia and Russia were in vogue.

The disruptors

The Telegraph Travel Awards have been running for some time. As the world shrinks and our travel habits evolve, for 2019 we decided to widen the map for the Best City category and included a broader selection for you to choose from.

The result? Kyoto entered the list in 3rd place, while Luang Prabang in Laos entered in 8th place. Also hiding in the shadows were Havana, Bagan and Dubrovnik, which each ranked in the top 20.

One notable shift is in Portugal; Lisbon won’t be best pleased. It has dropped from 15th place down to 26th, while Porto – entering the list for the first time in 2019 – has proven more popular in 22nd place.

Jaipur has emerged as your favourite city in India, entering the rankings in 25th compared to Mumbai (108th) and Delhi (127th). And New Orleans has been crowned your favourite city in the States (10th), compared to New York (12th), San Francisco (23rd), Chicago (32nd) and Boston (33rd).

• Kyoto (#3)
• Luang Prabang (#8)
• New Orleans (#10)
• Havana (#11)
• Bagan (#13)
• Dubvronik (#17)
• Porto (#22)
• Budapest (#24)
• Jaipur (#25)
• Cartagena (#28)
• Jerusalem (#30)

Biggest fallers

With so many new entries in this year’s Telegraph Travel Awards, there were some inevitable fallers. The biggest drops are Delhi (-60), which has suffered from poor air pollution this year, and Mumbai (-59). Bangkok, another city that suffers from poor air quality, also dropped 36 places.

Other notable fallers are Paris, which currently holds 67th spot after peaking at 24th back in 2016. You’ve also gone off Dublin, which slipped from 51st in the table to 83rd.

Where are you going in 2020?

As part of our survey, we asked which cities you are thinking of visiting in the next two years. In a year when cities like Dubrovnik, Venice and Barcelona have made the news for overtourism concerns, any fears of overcrowding don’t seem to affected Telegraph Travel readers’ holiday plans. 

Top of the Telegraph readers’s bucket list is New York – with return flights in 2020 starting from £240, we don’t blame you.

Where are you probably not going? In the next two years, only 12 of you are considering going to Kuwait City, 14 might be going to Manama  in Bahrain, and 17 will be jetting off for your holidays in Riyadh.

• New York (8%)
• Cape Town (6%)
• Rome (5%)
• Paris (5%)
• Sydney (5%)
• Vancouver (4%)
• Dubrovnik (4%)
• Venice (4%)
• Florence (4%)
• Barcelona (4%)
• San Francisco (4%)
• Tokyo (4%)

What makes Cape Town the best city in the world?

By Pippa de Bruyn

Despite bathtubs with no plugs, buckets in showers, requests to reuse cutlery and earnest notes to flush ‘only when absolutely necessary’, Cape Town has done it again. Call me shallow, but it’s rather like dating a mercurial model – we’ll put up with the occasional discomfort for the sheer joy of waking up with a real, natural beauty. Here are ten reasons to love Cape Town.

1. Geography

The original Khoi inhabitants named the iconic flat-topped massif ‘Hoerikwaggo’, Mountain of the Sea, and it is precisely this unique geography – towering mountains that drop, at times perpendicularly, into the vast blue – that is so seductive.

2. Boulders Penguins

The African penguin colony that settled at Boulders beach in 1982 has become a de rigueur stop on every peninsula tour, but those in the know pack a bather and join them in the bracing waters, or watch their antics while sprawled on the beach.

3. Cape Dutch History & Winelands

The oldest winemaking region in the New World is a delight to explore, albeit rather overwhelming – you could spend an entire year sampling your way through more than 500 wineries, from historic Cape Dutch homesteads to modernistic cubes overlooking vineyard-clad valleys.

4. Table Mountain Cable Car

With some 350 paths to the summit, hiking up Table Mountain is a day well spent but those pushed for time ascend in five minutes via a rotating cable car that provides 360° views of the fast-receding city and the sandstone cliff face that dwarfs it.

5. Museum of Contemporary African Art

Conveniently located next to the departure point for the Robben Island ferries, the MOCAA is the largest repository of the continent’s contemporary art, worth visiting to view the repurposed grain silo that houses it as much as the collection itself.

6. V&A Waterfront

The redevelopment of the city’s industrial docklands into the mixed use V&A Waterfront is considered one of the most successful in the world, not least because – amongst the chi chi hotels, restaurants and shops – is the beating heart of an authentic, gritty, working harbour.

7. Cape Point

A 7750-ha nature reserve within Table Mountain National Park, the most southwesterly tip of the continent is oft beset by vicious winds, its sheer, jagged cliffs pounded by a wild Atlantic that devoured many ships prior to the 1859 lighthouse, accessed today via the ‘Flying Dutchman’ funicular.

8. Kirstenbosch Gardens

One of the world’s great botanical gardens, with manicured lawns that blend seamlessly into the dense indigenous forests that carpet the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch hosts sunset concerts in the summer – a backdrop that is worth a picnic, regardless of whose playing.

9. BoKaap

In a city that still suffers a geospatial hangover from apartheid, the predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of Bo Kaap is to be treasured, not least when the plangent call of the muezzin floats across the city, calling the faithful to prayer.

10. Weather

Generally speaking, summers are hot and sometimes windy but temperatures and cloud cover can vary enormously at any particular moment, depending on which side of the mountain you find yourself, or how far you are from the coast. One weather pattern that is predicable: when it rains, the locals rejoice. 

See the full list of winners in the 2019 Telegraph Travel Awards here.