List of wealthiest families


Various lists of the richest families in the world are published internationally, by Forbes as well as other business magazines.
There is a distinction between wealth held by identifiable individual billionaires or a "nuclear family" and the wider notion of a historical "dynasty," where the wealth of a historically family-owned company or business has become distributed between various branches of descendants, usually throughout decades, ranging from several individuals to hundreds of offspring. According to Bloomberg, the world's 25 richest families control $1.4 trillion of wealth.

Contemporary rankings

Note: The list includes families who, according to reliable sources, have a combined net worth of 1 billion US Dollars and above.

Historical

Excluding royal dynasties and land-owning aristocracy, the wealthiest families since the emergence of banking and early capitalism in the Italian Renaissance were: