Billionaire Migration is a fascinating interactive map that shows where billionaires around the world were born and live.
The map is part of the academic paper “Mapping the Migration Patterns of the Global Economic Elite,” written by sociology doctoral candidate Wesley Stubenbord from Cornell University in the US. It is based on the International Database of Economic Elites and Their Wealth (IDEE Wealth), a dataset tracking the geography and social characteristics of over 3,100 billionaires worldwide. Combining residence data from Forbes magazine with demographic data from media, government, and other sources, the visualization illustrates the migration flows of the world’s wealthiest individuals from birth to their most recent place of residence.
The Billionaire Migration map can be filtered to display the birthplace or residence of billionaires (individuals with a net worth over $1 billion). Clicking or hovering over a city displays detailed information on the wealthy population, including how many were born in the selected city. According to the study, 23.3% of billionaires still live in their city of birth, while 81.6% live in their country of birth. For example, selecting London highlights its multinational elite (88% of billionaires were born elsewhere). Zooming in on New York reveals that 37% of billionaires were born there, compared with just 16% in Los Angeles.
