Billionaire

A billionaire is a person who has a net worth of at least one billion units of currency, such as United States dollars (USD/US$), U.K. pounds (GBP/£) or euro (EUR/€).

Though a "billion" used to be a million million in much of the Commonwealth of Nations, the American version (one thousand million) is commonplace now in the United Kingdom; so in Britain a billionaire is someone with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000 pounds [ [http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/billion Askoxford.com] ] .According to "Forbes Magazine", the year 2006 saw not only the biggest increase in billionaires around the world, but also was witness to the biggest economic expansion in history. It is believed that in that period, the world economy grew at an extraordinary rate of 4.7%. [http://indexmundi.com/world/gdp_real_growth_rate.html] The top three cities that have the largest concentration of billionaires according to Forbes are New York, London, and Moscow, with Moscow having the most billionaires according to the "Forbes" billionaire list published in 2008.

Origins of Billionaires

The first "Forbes" ranking of billionaires in 1986 found 140 billionaires around the world. However, by 2008 "Forbes" ranking counted a total of 1,125, whose total accumulated wealth measured US$4.4 trillion [ [http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/05/richest-billionaires-people-billionaires08-cx_lk_0305intro.html Forbes.com - Publishes the world's billionaires list annually ] ] . John D. Rockefeller became the first billionaire on September 29, 1916.

See also

Regions by net worth

* List of Canadians by net worth
* List of Chinese people by net worth
* List of Danes by net worth
* List of Dutch by net worth
* List of French people by net worth
* List of Indians by net worth
* List of Indonesians by net worth
* List of Japanese by net worth
* List of Malaysians by net worth
* List of Mexicans by net worth
* List of Pakistanis by net worth
* List of Russians by net worth
* List of Singaporeans by net worth
* List of Swedes by net worth
* List of Turks by net worth
* List of South East Asian people by net worth

Miscellaneous

* List of countries by the number of billionaires
* List of female billionaires
* List of heads of government and state by net worth
* List of Korean billionaires and multi-millionaires
* List of most wealthy historical figures
* List of US-dollar billionaires in Germany
* List of the 100 wealthiest people
* List of wealthiest non-inflated historical figures
* List of the wealthiest royals

References