In just a few short decades, China’s wealth has exploded — and unevenly. The country is now home to the world’s largest crop of billionaires with longstanding business giants in real estate and manufacturing, and a herd of unicorn startups.

For this week’s issue, The Wire has identified the wealthiest people across China’s provinces, and also looked at a tally of which countries have the most billionaires. 

Where Are the Billionaires? 

More than a quarter of the world’s billionaires can be found in China, and just under a quarter are in the United States. The number of billionaires in China outstripped the number in the United States in 2016, and the gap has steadily expanded ever since. Consider this: in 2005, Forbes counted just 10 billionaires in China. Today, the magazine says China has about 400.

The world closely watches the never-ending race to rank the rich, which can be viewed as a barometer of a country’s economic growth, a company’s health or the emergence of a new technology or startup. Forbes, Bloomberg and Hurun¹Click on the links and see the full list for all three — a firm that started in China — compete to publish annual lists of the world’s wealthiest people. The lists don’t always agree (Hurun has far more billionaires listed in China than Forbes), but they agree on one point: China is minting them like nowhere else. It is also remarkable to note that India has surpassed the U.K. and Germany.

China’s Wealthiest by Region

Of China’s 33 provinces and municipalities (see chart above, right), China’s richest are predictably concentrated in just a few. Top ranked Guangdong Province, where China’s workshop to the world first took root, has billionaires situated in its most vibrant cities — Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Foshan; Zhejiang Province has its wealth (like Jack Ma) in the cities of Hangzhou and Ningbo; and Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong each have legions of super wealthy. Of China’s major regions, only Macau, Shanxi, Tibet and Qinghai did not have a single billionaire.

Topping China’s list has become a contentious race, with higher and higher sums. In late September, Zhong Shanshan made a splash when he briefly overtook Jack Ma as China’s richest man, after the spectacular initial public offering of his bottled water company, Nongfu.²Zhong also has a pharmaceutical firm: Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise. He has since dipped back down to land comfortably in third place, with well over $50 billion to his name. 

Wealth per sector can also be anecdotally viewed through the net worth of the country’s billionaires. Though technology has quickly risen to prominence as the dreamer’s way to get rich quick, traditionally dominant sectors like real estate, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and finance each produced more billionaires than technology companies.³The top sectors on Hurun’s 2020 China Rich List showed 128 Chinese billionaires in real estate, 114 in pharmaceuticals, and 57 in finance or investments. Those in tech were split among categories like e-commerce, software, mobile, and fintech. But some of those who succeed in tech soar high, like top-two Jack Ma, of Alibaba and Ant Group fame, and Tencent’s Pony Ma. 

There has also been a gold rush in pharmaceutical and education enterprises. Guizhou’s Jiang Wei, for instance, made his fortune as the chairman of Guizhou Bailing Group, a pharmaceutical firm. In February of this year, he overtook Luo Yuping, the chairman at Zhongtian Financial Group, as the province’s wealthiest person. E-commerce giants like Alibaba and Pinduoduo have thrived in an era of virtual shopping. And the Ant Group’s upcoming IPO — likely the biggest ever — is sure to solidify Jack Ma’s position at the top of the list. 

See our map below of the richest people in each city or province. 

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