Tokyo tops the millionaire list with 461,000 millionaires at the end of 2012. Photograph: Patrick Batchelder / Alamy/Alamy

Where do the world’s wealthiest individuals live? Well, it depends if you’re talking millionaires, multi-millionaires or billionaires, according to a new list of the global rich.

Tokyo may contain the most millionaires (US$), however London is the city with the highest number of multi-millionaires – defined as individuals with over $30m each. For the fattest of the fat cats, though, look to New York where 70 billionaires have made their home – or maybe one of their many global homes.

The ranking of top global cities for millionaires, multi-millionaires and billionaires has been compiled by London based wealth consultancy WealthInsight using five years of data analysed by their team. So what insights can we glean from this latest rich list?

Millionaires

Tokyo tops the list with 461,000 millionaires at the end of 2012, followed by New York City with 389,000. London and Paris take third and fourth place respectively with Frankfurt, Beijing, Osaka, Hong Kong and Shanghai making up the the remainder of the top ten. Interestingly the second highest city for billionaires, Moscow, comes in 20th for its number of millionaires.

The report also looks at the proportion of each country’s millionaires in each city. Tokyo accounts for 21% of Japan’s millionaires whereas New York City accounts for only 7% of US millionaires. Cities with much higher proportions include Seoul (83%), Rome (49%) and London (42%).

Multi-millionaires

Now for the big players, those individuals with over $30m each. London is top of the list as the city with the most multi-millionaires (4,224) but Tokyo and Singapore follow in second and third place respectively.

New York makes an appearance at fourth place on the rankings – but if you’re surprised by the Big Apple’s slip down the rich list, WealthInsight do point out that ‘many wealthy New Yorkers live off the Island in cities such as Greenwich which has over 350 multi-millionaires on its own’.

 

Billionaires

New York (Manhattan) contains the most billionaires according to the release with 70 in the city. Moscow has 64 billionaires and London boasts 54.

Moscow, Mumbai and Istanbul are significantly higher on the billionaire list than they are on the millionaire rankings. Moscow which is ranked 20th for millionaires and is absent from the top 20 cities for multi-millionaires, comes in at third place on the billionaires list.

Hong Kong, Beijing, Mumbai, Istanbul, Shanghai, Paris and Los Angeles all make it into the top ten.