The 2024 Hurun Global Rich List has officially declared New York City as the billionaire hotspot of the world. This year’s roundup of the top twenty richest cities shows some fascinating changes from last year.
Back in 2023, New York was second fiddle to Beijing, which was then at the pinnacle. Fast forward to this year, and London has elbowed its way into second place, nudging Beijing down to fourth behind New York, London, and Mumbai. Speaking of leaps, Mumbai vaulted from sixth to third place, while New Delhi surged six places, breaking into the top ten at ninth. On the other hand, it’s been a downward trend for Chinese cities—Hangzhou took the hardest hit, tumbling from ninth all the way down to fourteenth. In contrast, most other Asian cities, except for Seoul, climbed up the ladder. A notable newcomer this year is Singapore, entering the list at fifteenth, right alongside other climbers like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Taipei, who’ve all edged up.
China and the United States make up nearly half of the cities on the top twenty list, which correlates with the two countries making up approximately half of the world’s population. The Chinese cities on the list in decreasing order of billionaires are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou. The US cities in descending order are New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. India is the only other country with multiple cities to appear on the list.
The other top contenders for most billionaires are Moscow, Paris, Jakarta, and Sao Paulo. While lists like the Hurun Global Rich List often vary on sources and exact rankings, it is always interesting to see which cities around the world billionaires choose to call home. The Forbes World’s Billionaires List caught particular attention this year for its inclusion of Taylor Swift, who is one of the only musical artists to reach billionaire status off of revenue from her music and touring alone. The singer, like many billionaires, owns multiple properties, which adds more conflicting data to a list like the Hurun Global Rich List. While the Hurun Global Rich List named Beijing the city with the most billionaires in 2023, Forbes gave the title to New York City. Despite these small differences, there is no doubt that billionaires tend to gravitate toward large cities with international connections.
Among other prominent names on the Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2024 were celebrities Rihanna, Jay-Z, and Oprah Winfrey. Bernard Arnault, the overseer of the Louis Vitton Moet Hennessey empire, claimed the top spot, followed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison. Hurun estimated that 167 people became billionaires in 2023, bringing the world’s grand total of billionaires to 3,279. Over half of this new wealth was driven by artificial intelligence, continuing the trend of tech innovations driving revenue. China is the country with the most billionaires at 814, followed by the United States with a total of 800.
