diff --git a/PythonAPI/pycocotools/coco.py b/PythonAPI/pycocotools/coco.py
index dc9972baf44648889ef1bd9fbf3a0d37c098ebe3..b8e913bc160be445082f5225d94cd8954d33b0f2 100644
--- a/PythonAPI/pycocotools/coco.py
+++ b/PythonAPI/pycocotools/coco.py
@@ -305,7 +305,7 @@ class COCO:
 
         print('Loading and preparing results...')
         tic = time.time()
-        if type(resFile) == str or type(resFile) == unicode:
+        if type(resFile) == str or (PYTHON_VERSION == 2 and type(resFile) == unicode):
             anns = json.load(open(resFile))
         elif type(resFile) == np.ndarray:
             anns = self.loadNumpyAnnotations(resFile)