In Sydney, 1.3% of the population has $US1 million ($A1.114m) or more in assets, once their primary residence is excluded.
That makes Sydney the world’s 12th most dense millionaire city. Melbourne is six places behind with 0.9% of the population meeting the same wealth threshold.
Together, 61.8% of Australia’s millionaires live in our two largest cities, with 37.8% living mainly in Sydney and another 24% in Melbourne.
The figures come from a report by global wealth consultancy New World Wealth, which found Geneva was the world’s leading city when it came to millionaires, with 5.9% of the population being seriously loaded.
In total aggregate numbers, London is home to the world’s most millionaires, with 339,200 calling the city home. This works out to 2.5% of the total population.
In the Asia-Pacific, Tokyo and Singapore lead the ranking, with 226,500 and 225,000 millionaires apiece respectively. Singapore has recently seen a flood of millionaires calling it home, like Australian mining speculator Nathan Tinkler and Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin. Such recent arrivals have helped make Singapore the most dense millionaire city outside Europe – 4.5% of the population there are millionaires.
There were no Middle Eastern or African cities in the top 30. However, New World Wealth notes Istanbul’s 35,000 millionaires mean it just missed out on a top-30 ranking. The highest-ranked African city was Johannesburg, with just over 23,000 millionaires.
The ranking shows that wealth remains concentrated in Europe and the United States. There were no less than seven US cities in the top 30, including second-placed New York. There were 10 European cities in the top 30, including two in Switzerland and three in Germany.
Myriam Robin is a reporter for SmartCompany and its sister site LeadingCompany. She has degrees in economics, international studies and journalism. She likes writing about businesses taking risks and doing new things.
