The top 10 cities with the most billionaires in 2020
In 2020, 493 new billionaires were added worldwide – one every 17 hours.
In the past seven years, New York City has had more billionaires than any other city in the world. Last year, however, marked a dramatic shift in the status quo.
Beijing has replaced the Big Apple and now has 100 billionaires. That's one more than the 99 billionaires who live in New York City.
Today's map uses Forbes data to show the top 10 cities with the most billionaires.
Where do most billionaires live?
The rich among the rich are fairly concentrated in cities, but some cities seem to best suit the lifestyle of billionaires. Here's a breakdown of the collective net worth of the top 10 billionaires in the capital and all the super-rich people who live there.
Some cities think of some obvious billionaires. Michael Bloomberg, the richest man and former mayor of New York, is worth $59 billion. Beijing's richest billionaire is TikTok founder (among others) Zhang Yiming, with a net worth of $35.6 billion.
In terms of locations per se, London, New York and San Francisco are the only Western cities on the list. Although New York was ousted from the list last year, overall, New York's billionaires are still worth more than Beijing.
Ma's hometown of Hangzhou is a new city that has entered the top ten billionaire cities. It eliminated Singapore from 10th place.
East meets West
More than half of the top 10 cities are located in Asia, a testament to the eastward shift of wealth seats. Five of the six Asian cities listed are in China.
What causes this?
The country has experienced an e-commerce boom, thanks at least to the pandemic. In addition, an effective treatment of COVID-19 has enabled the economy to get back on track faster than other countries. According to the BBC, 50% of China's new billionaires have made their fortunes through technology or manufacturing.
The four Chinese cities on the list will also be the fastest-growing billionaires in 2020. Net addition of more than 10 billionaires per city:
The only city to get more than 10 new billionaires in 2020 is San Francisco, with 11.
China now has 698 billionaires, behind the United States at 724. Beijing's overtaking of New York could be the beginning of a bigger tipping point.
Tidal changes
The total wealth of 1,149 billionaires in Asia Pacific is $4.7 trillion, while the total wealth of American billionaires is $4.4 trillion.
Overall, as China's economy continues to progress and more billionaires are moving east rather than west, the tide of wealth seems to be shifting.