For a reduced word i of the longest element in the Weyl group of SL n+1 (C), one can associate the string cone C i which parametrizes the dual canonical bases. In this paper, we classify all i's such that C i is simplicial. We also prove that for any regular dominant weight λ of sl n+1 (C), the corresponding string polytope ∆ i (λ) is unimodularly equivalent to the Gelfand-Cetlin polytope associated to λ if and only if C i is simplicial. Thus we completely characterize Gelfand-Cetlin type string polytopes in terms of i. CONTENTS 1. Introduction 1 2. Gleizer-Postnikov description 3 3. Braid moves and indices 6 4. Non-redundancy of string inequalities 10 5. Simplicial string cones 13 6. Gelfand-Cetlin type string polytopes 20 7. Proof of Theorem 6.4 24 References 29