[imagesource: Sohu.com]

The world has always had people with incredible wealth.

From Roman emperors to John D. Rockefeller who became the world’s first billionaire in measurable dollars, to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who often battle for the billionaire top spot in this day and age.

One might be wondering where the world’s supremely wealthy people live right now.

Visual Capitalist has some of the answers, having visualised the countries with the most billionaires in 2024, sourced from the annual Hurun Global Rich list.

Image: Voronoi by Visual Capitalist

A caveat to this data.

Total wealth estimates are notoriously difficult to get right, and different sources can vary in their billionaire data. For example, Forbes, switches ranks for the U.S. and China, though the overall top three remain the same.

Forbes also has Bernard Arnault as the current richest individual, while Hurun places Elon Musk atop the ranks. Nevertheless, their overall top 10 is similar with a few ranking differences.

As you can see the country with the most billionaires right now is China, with a whopping total of 814 billionaires, according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2024.

Despite holding on to the top spot, China lost 155 billionaires year-over-year, while the US gained 109. The gap between the two countries has now reduced to just 14 billionaires.

Together, America and China account for nearly half of the world’s 3,279 billionaires, leagues ahead of India at number three with 271 billionaires and the UK at number four with 146 billionaires.

Collectively, however, European countries account for six of the top 10 and eight of the top 20 countries with the most billionaires.

Image: Visual Capitalist

In the header image, you’ll see bottled water and tea magnate Zhong Shanshan who is the richest Chinese billionaire for the fourth year in a row, per Forbes. As the founder of Hong Kong-listed firm Nongfu Spring, Zhong, who dropped out of elementary school during China’s chaotic Cultural Revolution, is worth an estimated $62.3 billion, down from $68 billion a year ago. He ranks as the 24th richest person in the world, down from the 15th richest last year. Read more about the 10 richest Chinese billionaires for 2024 over here.

The wealthiest nations naturally boast a higher presence of billionaires due to the many avenues they offer for amassing wealth.

Switzerland, Singapore, and Sweden are outliers in this regard, with only one of them making the top 20 economies by total gross domestic product. All three countries are perceived to have high tax rates, generally not conducive to amassing wealth.

[source:visualcapitalist]