The World's Billionaires 2014

When forbes launched our first global wealth list 27 years ago we found 140 billionaires from 24 countries. Not one was from a former Communist regime. It took until 1997 for the first billionaire from mainland China to emerge. Since then free-market capitalism has spread quickly, with billion-dollar fortunes bursting out not just in former Eastern bloc countries like Poland and Romania but also in places like Vietnam and, for the first time, Algeria, Lithuania, Tanzania and Uganda. Our list lays out who has what country-by-country—and where each of the record-high 1,645 billionaires ranks in the global wealth pecking order (that’s indicated by the number preceding each person’s name). Rectangles on the maps identify the billionaire’s rank, city of residence and industry.

World's Billionaires List