Come across a person with a million or more dollars in assets and the odds are pretty good that they’re from the United States or China.

These days, more than half of all millionaires in the world live in these two countries, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which specializes in international business strategy.

The U.S. has 7.1 million millionaires, with China a distant second at 2.4 million. Together, that’s 9.5 million out of 16.3 million millionaires on the planet. China accounts for 19% of the world’s total population and the U.S. only 4.4%.

The worldwide total of millionaires went up significantly from only two years ago, when there were 13.7 million.

While the U.S. continues to struggle to grow its once formidable middle class, it has no trouble turning out high-income earners. There are by far more households in the U.S. with $100 million or more (so-called ultra-high-net-worth) than anywhere else—four times as many as second-place United Kingdom (4,754 Americans versus 1,044 Brits).

But the U.S. does not dominate all the high-wealth categories. The oil sheikdom of Qatar has the most millionaires per capita (175 out of every 1,000 households), followed by Switzerland (127) and Singapore (100).

BCG reports the U.S. has the largest number of billionaires, but the highest density of billionaire households is in Hong Kong (15.3 per million), followed by Switzerland (8.5 per million).

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Global Wealth 2014: Riding a Wave of Growth (Boston Consulting Group)

For the First Time, Half of Members of Congress are Millionaires…Democrats Worth more than Republicans (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)