According to the 2023 World’s Wealthiest City Report by intelligence firm New World Wealth, Nairobi and Mombasa have been ranked among the richest cities in the world. The report covers the population data of High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) in 97 cities across nine regions, including Africa, Australasia, CIS, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
To compile the report, New World Wealth tracks the movements and spending habits of over 150,000 high-net-worth individuals in their in-house database. The data also takes into account public prime property statistics such as property registers and property sales. The report considers the number of highly priced homes in each area.
Nairobi has 4,700 HNWIs, who are individuals with investable wealth of USD 1 million (Ksh134 million) or more. Additionally, 11 centi-millionaires, who have investable wealth over USD 100 million (Ksh.13 billion), also reside in Nairobi. Although the number of HNWIs in Nairobi grew by 30 percent between 2012 and 2022, there are no dollar billionaires living in the city. In terms of wealth on the African continent, Nairobi is ranked fifth, after Johannesburg, Cairo, Cape Town, and Lagos.
Mombasa has a total of 700 HNWIs and only 2 centi-millionaires. Similar to Nairobi, no dollar billionaires live in Mombasa, although the number of HNWIs in the city has grown by 33 percent in the past decade.
Globally, New York City is the world’s wealthiest city, with a total of 340,000 HNWIs, 724 centi-millionaires, and 58 dollar billionaires. Tokyo, the Bay Area (USA), London, and Singapore round off the top five wealthiest cities in the world.
