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A map of the world's billionaires and how they made their money

Picture: HowMuch.net
Picture: HowMuch.net

How do billionaires get so rich in the first place? And how likely is it that you’ll become one too someday? This handy map can tell you.

The data comes from cost information website How Much, who illustrated the world’s distribution of billionaires by country and origin of wealth.

The size of each country is also relative to its total number of billionaires.

The five categories of wealth origin are:

  • Inherited
  • Company founders 
  • Executives 
  • Political connections and resource related
  • Financial sector

Unsurprisingly, the US, which is the world’s largest economy, has 30 per cent of the world’s billionaires.

In comparison, the UK has just 2.8 per cent of the world’s billionaires, with the majority of them acquiring their vast wealth through working as executives.

While that may seem small, you could argue the average person is a lot more likely to become a billionaire here in the UK than in Denmark, where 83.3 per cent of billionaires inherited their wealth.

In fact, the UK is one of the few European countries where inheritance isn't the number one reason - Germany comes in at 64.7 per cent and Sweden is a close third.

You can find the full results on the How Much website.

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