Meet The Richest People In The Middle East

Home to 78 billionaires with an aggregate net worth of $209 billion, the Middle East claims just six female ten-digit fortunes. In this region, more than any other part of the world, wealth stays in the family: One third of the billionaires in the Middle East are related to each other.

Egypt's Sawiris family and Mansour brothers comprise seven of the nation's eight billionaires, while four Hariri brothers and two Mikati siblings make up Lebanon's ultra-high-net worth individuals.

Turkey boasts the highest number of ten-digit fortunes, with 24 at last count. Israel is a close second, tallying 18 billion-dollar fortunes for a combined net worth of $51.75 billion. These two nations also claim the region's only female billionaires - Israeli Shari Arison and Turkish Semahat Sevim Arsel, Suna Kirac, Ahsen Ozokur, as well as mother-daughter billionaires Deniz Sahenk and Filiz Sahenk.

Saudi Arabia's $776 billion GDP puts it in the top 10 percentile of world nation's gross domestic products. It has seven billionaires - fewer than the U.S. state of Georgia - but is home to the richest man in the region : Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud. His net worth of $20.4 billion at the time of publication comes from stakes in News Corp, Citigroup, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and other investments controlled through his Kingdom Holdings. (In 2013, Prince Alwaleed sued Forbes for libel in response to an article about him; Forbes has filed a formal response to the complaint.)

Prince Alwaleed's fellow Saudi national, Mohammed Al Amoudi, made his fortune investing internationally, first in Sweden and then through a diversified portfolio in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. He exports coffee beans to Starbucks and tea leaves to Lipton, in addition to owning oil refineries in Morocco and Sweden and oil fields off the coast of West Africa.

Despite being slightly smaller than the state of Maine, the United Arab Emirates has a GDP of $389.9 billion. Four Emiratis are billionaires, though seven additional expatriate billionaires reside in the U.A.E. The city of Dubai alone is home to nine billionaires; with a population of 2 million according to 2012 figures, visitors are likely to encounter a ten-figure fortune for every 222,223 people in the Emirate.

Mohammed Al Barwani, a new billionaire in neighboring Oman, joined FORBES' wealth rankings this year thanks to his energy conglomerate MB Holding; he also owns luxury yacht manufacturer Oceanco.

The oil-rich nation of Kuwait is home to five billionaires - the same number as Minnesota - comprised of the Al Kharafi and Alghanim families . The Kharafi Group is one of the region's biggest holding companies, while Alghanim Industries runs diverse operations in 40 countries. Like the U.A.E.'s Al Futtaim brothers, however, Kutayba Alghanim and his brother Bassam do not see eye-to-eye. They remain embroiled in a dispute over the division of assets they inherited from their father.

We are loosely defining The Middle East as Western Asian countries otherwise referred to as the Near East. Despite the eurocentricity of the term, it remains the most widely understood description of the region. We are also including the transcontinental Turkey since the republic's accession to the Europe Union remains ongoing.

As explained by Luisa Kroll and Kerry A. Dolan, our methodology rules we rank individuals rather than large, multi-generational families who share fortunes. We do not include royal family members or dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power, nor do we include royalty who, often with large families, control the riches in trust for their nation. This means the wealthy royal families of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are not eligible for our global wealth ranking. (These monarchs, like Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, land on our list of The World's Most Powerful People.)

Read the list of the region's 20 richest billionaires below, and navigate the map above to find out more about each nation. We have yet to find billionaires in Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Syria or Yemen.

Know of a Middle Eastern fortune? Have a billionaire tip we should look into? Tweet @natrobe or email nrobehmed@forbes.com.

1. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud

Country: Saudi Arabia

Net worth: $20.4 billion

Source of wealth: Investments

2. Mohammed Al Amoudi

Country: Saudi Arabia

Net worth: $15.3 billion

Source of wealth: Oil, diversified

3. Eyal Ofer

Country: Israel

Net worth: $7 billion