Baku, March 16 (AZERTAC). Moscow has held onto its title as the billionaire capital of the world. This is the fourth time in the past five years that Russia’s capital stays ahead of New Yorkon top of our list of billionaire haunts – those cities that are the primary homes to the most billionaires. Eighty-four of the world’s richest, worth a total of over $366 billion, call Russia’s most populous city home. New York City continues to rank second, with 62 billionaires worth $280 billion.  London and Hong Kong tie for third place, with 43 billionaires each.

Last time New York held the crown as the billionaire capital of the world was in 2009, when the U.S. had five cities in the top 10: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and Los Angeles.  This year, only two American cities make the top: New York and Dallas, home to 18 billionaires and tied in the last position with Paris. Even though 2012 was the year that Facebook launched its IPO, San Francisco is out of the top 10 mainly because many billionaires live near the metropolitan area. For instance, 10 are in Palo Alto alone.

Hong Kong retains its title as the most popular city among billionaires in Asia, with 43 billionaires. Beijing knocked out San Francisco and is back to the top 10 most popular residences for billionaires. China’s capital is home to 21 billionaires, 6 more than last year.  Mumbai and Seoul are other Asian cities included in the top 10.

The 37 billionaires living in Istanbul, where Europe and Asia collide, are the poorest among those in the top 10 billionaire cities. The average billionaire in the only city sitting across two continents is worth $1.7 billion, two times less than the average fortune of a billionaire living in London, for instance.

France’s capital is the place with the highest average net worth among billionaires. The average billionaire living in Paris is worth $6.81 billion, an astonishing $2.2 billion more than the average billionaire in any other city in the world.

The world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, and 98 other billionaires are from Latin America. However, only one city in the region makes the top 10: Sao Paulo, with 26 billionaires, seven more than last year.  In fact, Brazil’s financial center is home to more billionaires than any other city in the entire Southern Hemisphere. Astonishingly, the average fortune of a billionaires living in Sao Paulo is $4.6 billion, the world’s second largest, only behind Paris.

The biggest news of the top 10 billionaire cities is not at the top but at the bottom. In the last place, with 18 billionaires and tied with Dallas, is Paris, which was not part of the top 10 billionaire cities last year. It has surprisingly joined the rank, despite recent international headlines suggesting that wealthy people were leaving France because of its hefty taxes on the rich. There are five more billionaires with primary residence in “the city of light” than last year but, in full disclosure, most of those billionaires control large private fortunes that we heretofore had not pinned down. No one has moved to Paris of late and Bernard Arnault, the world’s 10th richest with a net worth of $29 billion, requested Belgian citizenship last year but denied reports that the main reason was related to the country’s tax regime.  At the end of last year, famous French actor Gerard Depardieu, who is not a billionaire, has become a Russian citizen claiming, “I leave after paying 85 percent of my revenue in 2012.”