imes Higher Education magazine on Wednesday published its 2013-14 World University Rankings. It was another strong year in general for East Asian institutions, while U.S. universities continued to dominate the rankings.

The United States takes seven of the top 10 places, and it has 77 institutions in the top 200 rankings. The California Institute of Technology retains its place at the top for the third consecutive year, with Harvard University regaining second place, a position shared with Oxford University. Stanford University slips from joint second to fourth.

Peking University of China ranked up one place to 45th, while Tsinghua University rose two places to joint 50th.

The University of Hong Kong is one of the few leading East Asian institutions not improving its position, falling eight places to 43rd. However, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (57th) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (joint 109th) both make significant gains.

Japan solidified its position as Asia's leading country in the rankings, with a total of five top-200 universities. The University of Tokyo maintains its status as Asia's number one and moves up four places to 23rd.

South Korea has four top 200 institutions.

"East Asian institutions' performance can mainly be attributed to the huge amounts of investment being directed into higher education," Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education Rankings, told Xinhua.

"Investment attracts the best faculty, allows for the provision of facilities to attract the best students and permits the proliferation of world-class research papers."

Phil also said: "Perhaps the remaining barrier for further movement up the tables is embracing internationalization, with greater international research collaboration and networks, and greater recruitment of international faculty and students."