South Africa is home to almost 50,000 millionaires, and just under half of them live in the country’s city of gold.
According to the latest figures from WealthInsight, South Africa is now home to 48,800 millionaires (worth more than $1 million) – up 9% from 2011/12 – and of those, 23,400 live in Johannesburg.
This makes Johannesburg home to the most millionaires in Africa, above Cairo, Lagos and Cape Town.
Cape Town holds the second largest amount of millionaires in the country, being home to over 9,000 of the super wealthy.
Within the greater Johannesburg area, Sandton holds 15,300 of the millionaires.
“Sandton experienced far stronger growth than the rest of the country with millionaire numbers in the area rising by 18% during the past year,” said WealthInsight analyst, Andrew Amoils.
The number of South African billionaires (worth more than $1 billion) remained at 4 in 2012/13. These big earners include Nicky Oppenheimer and family; Johann Rupert; Patrice Motsepe; and Christo Wiese.
There are 158 centi-millionaires in South Africa (worth between $100 million and $1 billion), and 594 multi-millionaires (worth more than $30 million).
“[While] Johannesburg has more multi-millionaires than any other African city (285)…it ranks well below the top ranked city in the world, London, which has over 4200 multi-millionaires, 15 times as many as Johannesburg,” Amoils said.
Top 10 millionaire cities
| # | City | Country | Millionaires (US$1 million+) |
| 1 | Tokyo | Japan | 461,000 |
| 2 | New York | USA | 389,000 |
| 3 | London | UK | 281,000 |
| 4 | Paris | France | 219,000 |
| 5 | Frankfurt | Germany | 217,000 |
| 6 | Beijing | China | 213,000 |
| 7 | Osaka | Japan | 190,000 |
| 8 | Hong Kong | China | 187,000 |
| 9 | Shanghai | China | 166,000 |
| 10 | Singapore | Singapore | 157,000 |
Top 10 multi-millionaire cities
| # | City | Country | Multi-millionaires (US$30 million+) |
| 1 | London | UK | 4,224 |
| 2 | Tokyo | Japan | 3,525 |
| 3 | Singapore | Singapore | 3,154 |
| 4 | New York | USA | 2,929 |
| 5 | Hong Kong | China | 2,560 |
| 6 | Frankfurt | Germany | 1,868 |
| 7 | Mexico City | Mexico | 1,850 |
| 8 | Paris | France | 1,500 |
| 9 | Osaka | Japan | 1,450 |
| 10 | Beijing | China | 1,318 |
Top 10 billionaire cities
| # | City | Country | Billionaires (US$1 billion+) |
| 1 | New York | USA | 70 |
| 2 | Moscow | Russia | 64 |
| 3 | London | UK | 54 |
| 4 | Hong Kong | China | 40 |
| 5 | Beijing | China | 29 |
| 6 | Mumbai | India | 26 |
| 7 | Istanbul | Turkey | 24 |
| 8 | Shanghai | China | 23 |
| 9 | Paris | France | 22 |
| 10 | Los Angeles | USA | 19 |
Overall, the United States has the most millionaires in the world, with over 5.23 million people worth over $1 million.
Japan has the second most (2.1 million) and Germany (1.32 million) and China (1.28 million) are third and fourth, respectively, while the UK rounds off the top 5 countries with 675,000 millionaires.
According to WealthInsight’s projections, China is expected to overtake Japan and Germany to become the 2nd largest wealth market in the world by 2020, while India is expected to jump from 11th place in 2012 to 5th place in 2020.
More on the world’s rich elite
Mapping the world’s billionaires
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