Where the World's Billionaires Were Born & Live

Billionaire Migration is a fascinating new interactive map that visualizes where the world’s billionaires were born - and where they now live. The map accompanies the research paper Where do billionaires come from and where do they live?, and draws on the International Database on Economic Elites and their Wealth (IDEE Wealth), a new dataset tracking the geography and social characteristics of more than 3,100 billionaires around the world.

The map can be filtered to show the number of billionaires born in each city or the number who live there. Clicking or hovering over a city reveals detailed information about its billionaire population. For example, selecting London highlights its multinational elite (with many of its billionaires born elsewhere in the world), while Beijing and Munich show more nationally concentrated groups of billionaires.

Hovering over New York City reveals that 37% of its billionaires were actually born there, compared to just 16% in Los Angeles. According to the research paper 23.3% of billionaires still live in their exact birth city, and 81.6% remain in their birth country.