In this piece, we will take a look at the top 50 richest cities in the world. For more rich cities, head on over to Top10 Richest Cities In The World.
Capitalism and the modern day economy have intertwined personal well being and financial strength. Some of the best healthcare facilities in the world have exorbitant fees, and drugs for a variety of deadly diseases have unbelievable price tags. For instance, one of the deadliest known diseases to humankind is thalassemia. This disease, which is not transmittable and cannot be transmitted, for instance, like AIDS, hampers the ability of the human body to produce red blood cells. Thalassemia affects either the alpha or the beta hemoglobin proteins, and children born with the disease have brittle bones, pale skin, heart and appetite problems, and other complications. Well, why is thalassemia relevant to a post about the richest cities? Well, only a privileged few can afford its treatment, which was approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and costs a whopping $2.8 million.
At the same time, the world's wealthiest have different lifestyles than the rest of us. For instance, a First Class return ticket on Emirates from New York to Dubai costs as much as $21,500 - a little less than the base price of a Honda Civic which is currently listed at $24,650. So, if you're willing to forgo your next Civic purchase, you're welcome to buy a return ticket to Dubai to get a glimpse of how the world's wealthiest live. But where do the richest live? Well, according to Forbes, the highest number of billionaires in the world live in New York City. New York's richest resident is Michael Bloomberg, and his $82 billion in net worth accounts for a little less than one fifth of New York's billionaires' net worth of $640 billion. However, after New York, the next two cities preferred by billionaires are both in Asia, with one being Beijing and the other being Hong Kong. However, the total net worth of all the billionaires that live there ($615 billion) is still less than the money held by New York's billionaires.
However, when we shift our focus from billionaires to millionaires, we find that while New York still ranks in first place with more than fifteen thousand millionaires, Beijing slips down to number nine (6,270 millionaires) and Hong Kong moves further down to 12th place with a total of 5,590 millionaires according to a report by Henley & Partners - a firm that lets wealthy individuals migrate to other countries.
With these details clear, let's now take a look at where is the world's wealth concentrated. A report from McKinsey, which compiled all of the world's assets as of 2020, points out that 46% of global net worth was concentrated in real estate. This is despite the fact that according to the Organization of Economic Corporation and Development (OECD), intangible assets such as patents, had the highest rate of return in 2015, with this rate going as high as 24%. Yet despite this, these assets represented only 4% of the global net worth, indicating that they were not thought of as an appropriate store of value by the investors.
Finally, have recent global trends influenced millionaire migration and caused these individuals to move around the world? Well, according to Henley, UAE continues to be the choice destination of millionaires, and Sydney, Australia, has been performing consistently for the past two decades. At the same time, no inheritance taxes in Australia is also another attractive factor that is influencing millionaire migration to the country. However, the Ukraine invasion has hit Russia hard, as a whopping 15,000 millionaires are expected to move out from the country in 2022. Other regions that are experiencing outflows include the U.K., India, and Saudi Arabia.
With these details in mind, let's take a look at the world's richest cities.
As part of our search for the richest cities, we first used data from Henley Global to see which cities have the highest number of millionaires. However, since millionaires are like needles in a haystack, especially for some of the larger cities on our list, we then took a look at the most expensive cities in the world as another proxy for wealth. After all, in most cases, you have to be rich if you're living in an expensive city. Finally, while the list of millionaires counts the wealthy, and the list of most expensive cities measures living standards, a broader metric of overall spending power was needed. This came in the form of after tax incomes, with the figure for San Francisco taken from the Census Bureau. These three metrics gave us an initial list of the 107 richest cities in the world. Each time a city appeared on a list, it was awarded a point corresponding to its ranking. If it didn't appear on a list, it got 50 points. The resulting scores were averaged, and the final list of the richest cities in the world is as follows.
Top 50 Richest Cities In The World
50. Madrid, Spain
Insider Monkey's Score: 45.67
Madrid is the largest city in Spain in terms of population.
49. Delhi, India
Insider Monkey's Score: 45.33
Delhi is one of the most historic cities in India.
48. Hangzhou, China
Insider Monkey's Score: 45
Hangzhou is best known for being the headquarters city of Alibaba.
47. Austin, Texas
Insider Monkey's Score: 44.67
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It has a $168 billion GDP.
46. Perth, Australia
Insider Monkey's Score: 44
Perth is a Western Australian city with a population of 2.1 million people.
45. Milan, Italy
Insider Monkey's Score: 44
Milan is one of the largest cities in Italy in terms of population. '
44. Brisbane, Australia
Insider Monkey's Score: 43.67
Brisbane is the third most populous city in Australia.
43. Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Insider Monkey's Score: 43.33
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of the oldest cities in the U.K.
42. Miami, USA
Insider Monkey's Score: 42.67
Miami is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida.
41. Athens, Greece
Insider Monkey's Score: 42.33
Athens is the capital city of Greece and a city that is often called the bedrock of modern day civilization.
40. Kyoto, Japan
Insider Monkey's Score: 42.33
Kyoto is one of the oldest cities in the world, having set up at the turn of the eighth century.
39. Boston, Massachussetts
Insider Monkey's Score: 42
Boston is the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and an economic hub known for its biotechnology industry. It has a whopping $513 billion economy.
38. Shenzhen, China
Insider Monkey's Score: 41.33
Shenzhen is a hub for manufacturing in China.
37. Warsaw, Poland
Insider Monkey's Score: 41
Warsaw is the capital of Poland and also its largest city with close to two million residents.
36. Seattle, Washington
Insider Monkey's Score: 41
Seattle is the largest city in the U.S. state of Washington. It has a GDP per capita of $96,072.
35. Abu Dhabi, UAE
Insider Monkey's Score: 38.33
Abu Dhabi is the capital of UAE.
34. Moscow, Russia
Insider Monkey's Score: 37.33
Moscow is the capital city of the Russian Federation, Europe's largest country by landmass.
33. Chicago, USA
Insider Monkey's Score: 37
Chicago is the third most populous city in the U.S. It has a huge $714 billion GDP but a per capita income of $72,191.
32. Mumbai, India
Insider Monkey's Score: 36.67
Mumbai is India's financial hub and houses the country's biggest stock exchanges.
31. Seoul, South Korea
Insider Monkey's Score: 35
Seoul is the capital of South Korea and one of the most developed cities in the world.
30. Melbourne, Australia
Insider Monkey's Score: 33.33
Melbourne is one of the largest cities in Australia and also an economic hub in the country which houses several large multinational firms.
29. Brussels, Belgium
Insider Monkey's Score: 33
Brussels is officially known as the City of Brussels and is part of the Brussels region.
28. Shanghai, China
Insider Monkey's Score: 33
Shanghai is a major financial and business hub in China.
27. Rome, Italy
Insider Monkey's Score: 32.67
Rome is a historic Italian city known for its culture and arts.
26. Frankfurt, Germany
Insider Monkey's Score: 31.67
Frankfurt is a German city and houses some of the world's biggest banks.
25. Vancouver, Canada
Insider Monkey's Score: 31
Vancouver is Canada's largest portal city and an industrial hub.
24. Houston, USA
Insider Monkey's Score: 30
Houston is among the top five most populated cities in the U.S. It has a $489 billion GDP.
23. Stockholm, Sweden
Insider Monkey's Score: 28.67
Stockholm is the capital city of Sweden and houses close to a million people.
22. Beijing, China
Insider Monkey's Score: 28.67
Beijing is the capital city of the People's Republic of China, the world's second largest economy in nominal terms. It is also the world's most populous capital and has the second highest population in China.
21. Auckland, New Zealand
Insider Monkey's Score: 28.33
Auckland has one of the highest incomes in New Zealand and it is an economic hub in the country.
20. Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Insider Monkey's Score: 24.33
Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands and a financial center in Europe.
19. Doha, Qatar
Insider Monkey's Score: 23.67
Doha is the capital city of Qatar and houses the country's crucial energy companies.
18. Geneva, Switzerland
Insider Monkey's Score: 23.33
Geneva is one of the largest cities in Switzerland. It has the third highest GDP per capita in the world of $217,919.
17. Tel Aviv, Israel
Insider Monkey's Score: 23
Tel Aviv is a major economic center in Israel.
16. Dublin, Ireland
Insider Monkey's Score: 22.67
Dublin is the capital city of Ireland.
15. Zurich, Switzerland
Insider Monkey's Score: 21.67
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and also one of the oldest in the world with a human presence for thousands of years. The city is known for its strong financial centers, which leads Europe after U.K.'s London.
14. Oslo, Norway
Insider Monkey's Score: 20.33
Oslo is the capital of Norway and one of the biggest players in the global maritime industry
13. Reykjavík, Iceland
Insider Monkey's Score: 20
Reykjavík is the capital of Iceland. While it has a few centi millionaires, the city has some of the highest after tax income in the world.
12. Copenhagen, Denmark
Insider Monkey's Score: 20
Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark.
11. Los Angeles, USA
Insider Monkey's Score: 20
Los Angeles is the second largest city in America in terms of population and an economic hub on the West Coast. It has the third largest economy for a city in the world and a GDP per capita of $86,888.
