Meet the world's richest women worth a combined $220 BILLION (and not one of them made it herself)

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The world's nine wealthiest women are worth a combined $230billion - though they earned very little of the money themselves.

The list of female billionaires continues to be dominated by women who inherited their money from their husbands and fathers who ran booming empires such as Walmart, Mars and L'Oreal.

Of the world's billionaires, 286 are women, but only 17 per cent of that group are self-made, according to a report from wealth researcher Wealth-X. Of male billionaires, 60 per cent are self-made, Wealth-X president David Friedman said.

Liliane Bettencourt's father founded the French cosmetics company L'Oreal in the 1900s

1. Liliane Bettencourt, 92: $41.2billion from L'Oreal

Liliane Bettencourt, the 92-year-old heiress of French cosmetics company L'Oreal, surged to the top spot on the list of the world's wealthiest women on Friday when her stake in the firm gained $400milion in value, according to Forbes.  

The widow, who suffers from dementia and is no longer involved with running the company, inherited her stake from father Eugene Schueller, who first began selling beauty products in the early 20th century.

In the 1950s she married Andre Bettencourt, who also worked at L'Oreal after being involved in a French fascist group that collaborated with Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II.

He died in 2007 after leaving L'Oreal in the midst of revelations about his past. 

The years since Liliane's retirement from her father's company have seen her give away large sums of money, though there is currently a fraud trial of ten people accused of using her dementia to swindle her out of millions

Christy Walton, 60, married into the Walton family

2. Christy Walton, 60: $41.1billion from Walmart 

Christy Walton, 60, has been the world's wealthiest woman for long periods of time, including up until Thursday morning.

With an accumulated wealth of $41.1billion inherited from her late husband, she holds the largest part of the Walmart empire's fortune, according to CBS.

She married into the family through John, son of Walmart founder Sam. However, the retail heir died when a small plane he was piloting crashed in 2005.

Christy and the rest of the Walton family made headlines after they did not sign on to Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett's pledge to give half their wealth to good causes while they were alive. 

The family has given an estimated .04 per cent of their wealth to charity. 

Sam Walton's daughter Alice devoted herself to art

3. Alice Walton, 65: $38.6billion from Walmart                      

Alice Walton, 65, inherited her $38.5billion stake in her father's empire, though she has not been involved in running the business.

She instead chooses to devote her time, energy and vast financial resources to art, building a 200,000-square-foot museum filled with modern works in northwest Arkansas, according to Forbes.

The heiress's life has not been without troubles, however. 

Ms Walton, who has married and divorced twice without children, killed a woman with her car in 1988, though no charges were filed.

She had a drunk driving arrest in 1998 and another in 2013 where she refused to take a breathalyzer and charges against her were later dropped.

Though her primary residence is a horse ranch in Texas, she also owns two floors on Park Avenue where protesters demanded higher wages for her company's workers last year. 

4. Jacqueline Mars, 75: $27billion from Mars Inc candy company

SJacqueline Mars's $26.8billion fortune stems from Mars Inc  (pictured 2012)

Life for Jacquelin Mars has always been pretty sweet. 

She inherited $26.8billion from the company that bears her name, which her grandfather started in Washington at the turn of the last century.

She shares the company evenly with her two brothers, Forrest Jr. and John.

However she had an experience eerily similar to Ms Walton's fatal driving accident in 2013.

She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving after she ran into a minivan, leading to the death of an 86-year-old woman and causing a pregnant woman to miscarry her unborn child.

The heiress paid $2,500 in the case, or .00000009 per cent of her fortune.  

5. Laurene Powell Jobs, 51: $19.6billion 

Laurene Powell Jobs, 51 (pictured 2013), inherited shares of Apple and Disney from her late husband

Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of late Apple founder Steve, is worth $19.3billion after a career in finance and inheriting stakes in the tech giant and Disney from her 1991 marriage.

At 51, the graduate of Stanford Business School is the youngest member of the list,which has an average age of more than 72.

She keeps busy with her own set of initiatives, including running the Emerson Collective, which fosters entrepreneurship for the underprivileged and advocates for education reform.

The businesswoman is also on the Board of Trustees at Stanford. 

Though she generally keeps a low profile, the widow was recently spotted on a Caribbean vacation with former Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, 44.

The pair are believed to have been dating since 2013. 

Susanne Klatten, 52 (pictured in 2009), worked for her father Herbert Quandt under an alias

6. Susanne Klatten, 52: $17.2billion from BMW 

While the majority of the world's nine wealthiest women are American, the sixth and eighth spots inherited their wealth from German automaker Herbert Quandt, who led the resurgence of BMW in the 20th century.

Susanne Klatten, 52, began working for her father's company under an alias before marrying an engineer and inheriting stakes that make her worth $16.9billion.

She also owns stakes in a wind turbine company, Nordex, and a chemical company called Altana.

The mogul earned a bachelors at University of Buckingham in England, an MBA in Switzerland and has three children, according to Bloomberg.

The driven woman's life has not been without difficulties, however. 

She had an affair with a Swiss businessman who threatened to publish sexual videos of her if she did not pay him $72 million. 

In 2009 the man was sentenced to six years in prison for blackmail.

Anne Cox Chambers, 95, inherited a media empire

7.  Anne Cox Chambers, 95: $17.1billion from Cox

The only media mogul among the world's wealthiest women, Anne Cox Chamber's inherited her stake in various Cox media ventures from her father James. 

A vast information empire, Mrs Cox Chambers has shares in companies including Cox Communications cable company, Kelley Blue Book automotive reselling manual and many local television and radio stations.

She has remained active in various affairs beyond her father's businesses, however.

The heiress served as ambassador to Belgium during the administration of President Jimmy Carter and was the first woman member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

She also received the French Legion of Honor from Francois Mitterand. 

8. Johanna Quandt, 88: $14.4billion from BMW

Johanna Quandt, 88, was the third wife of BMW's Herbert Quandt

Susanne Klatten's mother Johanna Quandt, 88, was Herbert Quandt's third wife after working as a secretary for the automaker.

Beyond a large stake of the car manufacturer, which makes vehicles including Minis and Rolls-Royces, she also controls part of a security software company based in the Netherlands. 

Both parents of Mrs Quandt, maiden name Bruhn, were art historians. 

She now lives in the German spa town of Bad Homburg, near Frankfurt.

Neither Mrs Quandt or Mrs Klatten have ever sold a share of Herbert Quandt's company.

The family has come under fire for their links to Nazism during the reign of Adolf Hitler.

Herbert Quandt's half-brother Habart was the son of the Third Reich's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. 

9. Iris Fontbona, 72: $13.8billion from various ventures

Chilean Iris Fontbona, 72, received her money as part of an influential family as well as from a marriage to Andrónico Luksic

The ninth wealthiest woman is Chilean Iris Fontbona, 72, who gained her money from her family's copper business and company that owns Banco de Chile.   

She also married late Croatian-Chilean businessman Andrónico Luksic, and her wealth is currently estimated at $13.8billion. 

Her assorted business interests also include Chile's largest brewer and a resort in Croatia.

The Luksices make investment decisions collectively, as a council.

Michele Ferrero, the confectioner who was Italy's richest man, died on Valentine's day and his wife Maria Franca Fissolo is likely to inherit a large amount of his $23billion.

Inheriting the entire amount would place her fifth among the world's wealthiest women.

Seventy-nine per cent of the world's female billionaires fully inherited their wealth.

The largest share of self-made women billionaires is in the US, with 40 per cent of Americans in the group making their own way.

China, expected to soon have a larger amount of wealth concentrated in businesswomen's hands, comes in second at 22 per cent.

The average age of all female billionaires is 61, with 21 per cent widows.