The importance of the creative cities of the future is manifested in the protection of the cultural heritage of cities, in improving the quality of life of their residents, in building their own, unique and recognizable city identity, thereby increasing the competitiveness of the city. They also have a positive impact on the development of tourism and economy in the wider and the narrow surroundings of the city. With their development, creative cities struggle against ecological pollution, unemployment, depopulation, lack of innovation, big differences between rich and poor and other problems, in a imaginative, inspirational and attractive way, all with the purpose of creating a quality and desirable place to live. This paper analyzes the theme of creative cities of the future. At the beginning, it will be explained the concept of a creative city as well as its characteristics, creative rule, and cultural and creative industries. Next chapter will talk about UNESCO Network of Creative Cities, the goals and key reasons for launching the Creative Cities Network and the criteria that a creative cities has to possess in order to be found on this prestigious list. The third chapter is about the European Capital Cities in general, about the European Capital Cities for the current 2017 (Aarhus and Pafos), and Rijeka as the Croatian European Capital of Culture for 2020. The last part of the paper deals with cities of the future, their characteristics, factors and challenges, but it also will be mentioned five Croatian cities and Tokyo as one of the most interesting and most advanced foreign cities.