Ye Shiwen (L) and Sun Yang.

China's newly-crowned world champions and up-and-coming Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen were named Pacific rim swimmers of the year 2011 by US sports magazine Swimming World on Wednesday.

The American-based monthly Swimming World is a leading swimming magazine and well known for for awarding "Swimmer of the Year" awards in various categories.

For the first time since the creation of the award in 1995, China has swept both the male and female awards as Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen are this year's recipients.

Sun, twice-winner at the 2011 FINA World Championships and the new 1,500m world record holder, was elected by a unanimous vote of 19. Other male nominees include Olympic and world 400m freestyle champion Pak T'ae-hwan from South Korea and Japanese "breaststroke king" Kousuke Kitajima.

In the women's category, 15-year-old Ye trounced her world champion fellows Jiao Liuyang, Zhao Jing and Olympic champion Liu Zige for 13 votes out of 19. Ye won the 200m individual medley in Shanghai to become the youngest world champion since 1978.

Here is how the Top 5 rankings worked out in the Pacific Rim.

Female

1. Ye Shiwen, CHN (14)

2. Jiao Liuyang, CHN (3)

3. Zhao Jing, CHN

4. Alicia Coutts, AUS

5. Liu Zige, CHN (2)

Male

1. Sun Yang, CHN (19)

2. James Magnussen, AUS

3. Tae Hwan Park, KOR

4. Ryosuke Irie, JPN

5. Naoya Tomita, JPN/Kosuke Kitajima, JPN

(Parenthesis indicates first-place votes)