The World's Best Cities: Celebrating 220 Great Urban Destinations

LOVED IT

Great read

I found the book very done; nice photos but I expected a better quality of images. Regards Rui H. da Silva

Another perfect coffee table book that goes nicely with my other National Geographic purchase last year (Destinations of a Lifetime). Visually awesome and the accompanying text makes it a very light read. A lot of great ideas for places to visit that you can add to your bucket list :) ** If you found my brief review helpful in any way, please click the 'yes' button below **

Lovely book with great photos, and a nice coffee table book for the uninitiated. It does indeed cover the world's great cities but it definitely caters to a North American bent (the target market), with glaring exceptions. A part of me wonders whether NG would have brewed up a storm if it had omitted places like Denver, Honolulu, Minneapolis, Portland, Asheville, Halifax, intended to win more local fans that way, or were just the hometowns of some of their editorial team. Great that those cities are, for a more global perspective it misses out on some real stunners. Even if we're just talking pretty there's Nanjing (China's history riddled former capital), Fez (the world's largest medieval city, pop 2 million), Constantine (a colonial city of 2 million built in, around and clinging to a massive Algerian gorge), Sana'a (the world's largest pre-industrial city still extant), Quito (with one of the world's largest Old City's), Kyoto (Japan's cultural heart, with 3000 temples and shrines), Hangzhou (China's richest megacity with a Chinese classical landscape at its heart), Vancouver (the livable, contemporary city par excellence). I could go on - the great UNESCO World Heritage cities of Krakow, Georgetown, Dubrovnik, Isfahan, Florence, Cartagena are all seemingly forgotten. There is also that - how can I put it - how a sanitised postcard city will make the cut, but those deemed too poor or unruly never make the grade. Places renowned for their vibrant history, culture, food and nightlife such as Hanoi, Seoul, Lahore, Beirut, Lhasa - which are some of the highest rated cities in tourism rankings and visitor experience - notably miss out also. There is indeed the inclusion of places like Dakar, Nairobi, Mumbai and Mexico City, but to me seems more nods of acknowledging continent sized dark areas beyond the pale, rather than a real sense of wonderment. It's telling for example that it's Nairobi guide talks about nothing but moneyed trips to estates and parks actually outside the city, with the culture summed up by two local dishes. To put it as US/Eurocentric is an understatement, which garner more coverage than the rest of the world combined - the US alone has more cities covered than Asia, and devotes for example 2 pages to Shanghai, 4 to Denver. In short this book is a gorgeous, if simplistic, introduction to the postcard tourist. The photography is of course, in NG tradition, superb and inspiring. It's just a shame the book wasn't longer - which threatens to make it, dare I say it, out of date. The tome covers the beaten path clichés, but fails to deliver in the less sensationalised or un-Americanised gems. It really missed the opportunity to introduce say, the amazing spectrum of architecture that is Helsinki, or the world's first fusion cuisine in colonial Georgetown, Malaysia, or the stellar nightlife of Beirut, or the award winning liveability of Munich - each of which is currently drawing droves of new visitors, but which we'll have to wait a few more years for NG to catch up. In conclusion I would say this a lovely book, just not in anyway an authoritative one. Don't treat it as such, it's almost misleading, especially with its title. It's also very safe, enough for an armchair.

A number of pages have defective printing