Forbes’ inaugural World’s Billionaires list in 1987 included 140 billionaires.
The list was Forbes magazine’s first systematic attempt to rank the world’s wealthiest people using publicly available information about assets, companies, property and investments. Its 140 entries represented a much smaller billionaire population than modern editions, which contain thousands of names.
Japanese property investor Yoshiaki Tsutsumi ranked first in that original edition. His position reflected the extraordinary rise in Japanese land and stock values during the country’s late-1980s asset bubble. A common mix-up is to confuse the number of people on the first list with the number of countries represented; the list counted individuals, not nations or families.
Forbes has changed its valuation methods over time, so historical fortunes are not directly comparable with later dollar totals. Nevertheless, the 1987 edition established the annual ranking that became one of the best-known wealth lists in journalism.