There are now more billionaires in Turkey than in Japan, Russia’s billionaires are worth more than Germany’s, and even Serbia can claim a billionaire.

Forbes magazine’s 20th anniversary edition of its billionaires list, which hits newsstands today, is a testament to the power of globalization: The world’s richest people are not limited to North America and Western Europe anymore.

The world’s 946 billionaires — up 153 from last year — together are worth $3.5 trillion and come from 53 nations, making 2007 the richest year in human history, according to Forbes’s chief executive and editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes. In fact, a Mexican telecom mogul, Carlos Slim Helu, added $19 billion to his net worth last year alone. “The growth of this list reflects the dynamism of the global economy. More people on this earth are doing better than ever before,” he said.

With the end of the Cold War and the opening up of many nations, more entrepreneurs are able to join the world economy. The advancement of technology and a boom in commodities have also helped mint new billionaires. “Prosperity is the best revenge,” Mr. Forbes said at a press conference at the magazine’s Fifth Avenue headquarters yesterday.

With 415 billionaires, America claims most of the world’s richest men and women. Microsoft’s Bill Gates, at $56 billion, claims the title of world’s richest man for the 13th year in a row. The 55 newly minted American billionaires include a former Disney chairman, Michael Eisner, and the Starbucks chief executive, Howard Schultz.

According to the new Forbes list, the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, is worth $5.5 billion. Besides the mayor, the 10 richest billionaires in New York City include financier Carl Icahn at $13 billion, petrochemical heir David Koch at $12 billion, press mogul Rupert Murdoch at $9 billion, publisher Sy Newhouse at $7.3 billion, Access Industries’s Leonard Blavatnik at $7.2 billion, financier Ronald Perelman at $7 billion, and Ralph Lauren at $5 billion.

Real estate mogul Leonard Stern and Loews heiress Joan Tisch, each with a net worth of $3.7 billion, round out the list of the city’s richest billionaires.

Mr. Forbes said 60% of the billionaires on this year’s list are self-made. Eighty-three women (10 of whom are self-made) appear on the list, including Oprah Winfrey, eBay’s chief, Meg Whitman, and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. In fact, the magazine includes a special article on what it terms “The 1% Club”: Only one in 100 of the world’s billionaires are self-made women.

A curious phenomenon this year involves Spain, which placed 10 new billionaires on the list. An editor of the Forbes list, Luisa Kroll, attributed this surge in wealth in part to the influx of rich Northern Europeans snapping up prime real estate along the Spanish coast.

Wealth is also concentrated near the top of the list: The net worth of the top 10 billionaires in the world is $344 billion; the net worth of the top 20 is $537 billion.

The Walton heirs and Michael Dell all slipped from the top 20 this year. New entries to the top 20 include two Indian brothers, Mukesh and Anil Ambani, whose mother helped settle a longstanding feud last year. According to Forbes, the brothers split their wealth and in doing so became much richer.

Mr. Forbes dismissed critics who cite a growing disparity between rich and poor. The cure for poverty, he said, is a free market and a free society. “Thankfully, more people are realizing this,” he said.