Boasting millions of acres of prime real estate between them, it's not too surprising that the planet's wealthiest property tycoons are worth serious money. We profile the most affluent by country, from self-made magnates to privileged heirs who were bequeathed immense landholdings and bricks and mortar assets.

Now 78, billionaire property baron Jose Isaac Peres was only 22, and an ambitious economics student, when he founded real estate company Vepan, which became the first property firm to be listed on the Brazilian stock exchange. The business has since morphed into Multiplan. It has developed 17 massive shopping malls in Brazil that welcome 160 million customers a year. Peres has done well from it, the mogul now has a fortune of $1.3 billion (£1bn).

Malaysia's king of real estate, 74-year-old Jeffrey Cheah started out with a small tin-mining firm in the mid 1980s and turned it into Sunway Group, an enormous conglomerate with property development its core concern. Key assets of the group include the sprawling Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa and Sunway Pyramid shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur.

Lesley Bamberger, 53, heads Kroonenberg Groep, the property enterprise established by his grandfather Jacob Kroonenberg in 1956. The Dutch group's flagships include Résidence L'Étoile and The Bank skyscraper in Amsterdam, as well as New York's swish Huys condo complex at 404 Park Avenue South.

Rising from rags to riches, County Galway brothers Brian and Luke Comer, who are 59 and 61 respectively, worked as plasterers before they got into the property game. The siblings moved in real estate by trading development sites in the UK and have gone on to amass a formidable portfolio of properties in the UK, Ireland and Germany.

The first billionaire to come out of Slovakia, 51-year-old Ivan Chrenko started developer HB Reavis in Bratislava in 1993. After masterminding the city's first business centres and luxury shopping mall, the hugely successful firm has gone on to create major developments throughout Europe, most notably in the City of London, and is building on Poland's tallest skyscraper, the Varso Tower in Warsaw.

Bored at school, restless Ivar Tollefsen set up a company at age 14 selling DJ services and nightclub equipment, and used the proceeds to found a real estate firm, which now owns thousands of apartments in Scandinavia. On the way, the adventurous property mogul, who is 58, was kidnapped and held for ransom, competed in the Dakar rally and has undertaken several climbing expeditions in the Antarctic.

Indonesia's premier real estate mover and shaker, Alexander Tedja, 73, founded groundbreaking developer Pakuwon Jati in 1982. The company pioneered super-block integrated developments in the country, and owns and operates a slew of shopping malls, condos, offices and five-star hotels.

France's leading real estate mogul, Alain Taravella, 71, co-founded Altarea Cogedim in 1994 and helped transform it into the nation's third-largest property firm. The company, which has interests in France, Italy and Spain, has a multitude of assets from 11,119 residential units to major shopping malls and hotels.

Sir Micheal Friedlander, who was knighted in 2016 for his philanthropic endeavours, is New Zealand's richest property tycoon. Born in 1936, Friedlander made his money investing in Auckland's high-end commercial real estate market and controls hundreds of properties in the country's largest city.

Bahaa Hariri, 53, inherited the family real estate business Saudi Oger after his father, the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in 2005. Three year later the property heir offloaded his stake in Saudi Oger, which operated extensively in Saudi Arabia, to his brother Saad Hariri who just happens to be Lebanon's current PM. Bahaa now heads up Horizon Group, a real estate and investment vehicle based in Switzerland.

The richest of Spain's property magnates, 45-year-old Tomás Olivo López owns the lion's share of General de Galerías Comerciales, which has developed six humongous shopping malls in Catalonia and Andalusia. Like many of the tycoons in our round-up, Olivo López had humble beginnings, having started his career working in a petrol station in his home town of Balsapintada in southeast Spain.

Buenos Aires-born, now US-resident, Jorge Pérez, 69, got rich building low-income apartments in Miami and has gone on to construct some of the city's glitziest condos via his company the Related Group. An avid art collector and philanthropist, the so-called "Donald Trump of the Tropics" has a portfolio of developments in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Panama to boot.

Czech property tycoon Radovan Vítek, 48, who has recently been accused of fraud and racketeering by a New York hedge fund, heads CPI Property Group, which owns swathes of real estate in Germany, Hungary, France and elsewhere. Vítek famously snapped up The Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr's Surrey manor house for $17.4 million (£13.5m) in 2015 and has homes in St Barts and the Swiss Alps.

Born in Germany but resident in Switzerland, 67-year-old Ursula Bechtolsheimer-Kipp inherited a fortune in 2017 after the death of her father Karl-Heinz Kipp. In 1985, the businessman sold his chain of department stores but kept hold of the property, which has passed to his daughter. Bechtolsheimer-Kipp also owns the Tschuggen Hotel Group that has assets including the Carlton Hotel in St Moritz.

Yet another real estate heir, Fredrik Lundberg, who is now 67, assumed control of LE Lundbergforetagen AB in 1981. The enterprise was established in 1944 as a construction business by his father Lars. Today, the Stockholm-based conglomerate has numerous real estate assets and interests in several key Swedish companies.

Another tycoon who inherited a property empire, Akira Mori, 82, took charge of his father's real estate development firm in the 1990s. Now called the Mori Trust, the family-run organisation owns and operates 67 buildings in Tokyo and other Japanese cities, most notably the Tokyo Shiodome Building and the capital's Conrad Hotel.

René Benko, who is 41, dropped out of university to establish real estate firm Immofina and never looked back. In 2000, the company was renamed Signa Holding. It initially concentrated on loft renovations, but oversaw the construction of a shopping mall in 2004 and is now Austria's largest privately owned property group with offices in Vienna, Berlin, Luxembourg and elsewhere.

India's most moneyed property baron, Kushal Pal Singh, 87, began working at his father-in-law's company DLF Limited in 1961. Now the chairman, Singh oversaw the construction of the firm's flagship city in Gurgaon. Thanks to his expert leadership, DLF Limited has grown to become the country's largest commercial real estate developer with an annual turnover well in excess of $1 billion (£777m).

The UAE's number one real estate tycoon, Majid Al Futtaim (pictured here in the early 1970s) founded his eponymous company in 1992. Today, the real estate and retail firm, which is based in Dubai, operates in the Middle East, Pakistan, Armenia and Georgia. Its assets range from 24 shopping malls, including the vast Mall of the Emirates, to 13 hotels and a resort in Oman.

After escaping Nazi persecution in Poland, the late Daniel Azrieli, who was famed for his lavish philanthropy, built a colossal property empire in Canada and the US through CanPro Investments and had major interests in Israel via the Azrieli Group. Upon his death in 2014, Azrieli's businesses passed to his daughters, Naomi and Danna. Naomi, 53, looks after CanPro Investments, while Danna, 51, heads up the Azrieli Group.

Manuel Villar, 69, cut his teeth working as an accountant and financial analyst before moving into real estate in the 1970s. Now the richest person in the Philippines, Villar chairs Vista & Landscapes, the country's leading homebuilder, as well as one of the country's largest mall operators, and has enjoyed a successful political career too, serving as a senator and president of the Nacionalista Party.

Russia's richest property moguls, Azerbaijan-born God Nisanov, 47, (pictured) and Zarakh Iliev, 52, teamed up in 1992 and started out building markets in Moscow, which they later converted into shopping malls. The pair went on to diversify into hotels and today the business partners own around 14 million square feet of lucrative real estate in the Russian capital.

Another property tycoon who was born into wealth, 68-year-old Eyal Ofer inherited a fortune from his shipping magnate father Sammy, who was once Israel's richest person. The lucky heir has expanded the family business into real estate through his company Global Holdings, which owns and manages an abundance of upscale buildings in New York, London, Amsterdam and other major cities.

Nicknamed “high-rise Harry”, China-born Harry Triguboff, 86, became an Australian citizen in 1960 and began buying land and developing property in the country during the early 1960s. The company he founded back then is now the biggest residential real estate developer Down Under. To date, Meriton Apartments has constructed tens of thousands of townhouses and apartment blocks , including World Tower, Sydney's tallest residential building.

Germany's richest property magnate, Alexander Otto, 51, has a major interest in the mail order and real estate company started by his late father Werner in 1949 and controls ECE Projekt Management, which has built 200 shopping malls in Europe. Otto also has a sizeable share in Paramount Group, a commercial real estate firm that owns masses of office space in North America.

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Brothers Robert, 67, and Philip Ng (pictured), 60, are the wealthiest real estate moguls in Singapore. The siblings head Sino Group and Far East Organization, the property giants founded by their father Ng Teng Fong, who died in 2010. Robert looks after the family's numerous assets in Hong Kong, while Philip runs the Singapore arm and is the city state's leading landlord.

The youngest property mogul in our round-up, Hugh Grosvenor inherited the Grosvenor Group in 2016 upon the death of his father, Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster. Through the group, the 28-year-old aristocrat is the 'beneficial owner' of hundreds of thousands of acres of land and prestige property in the UK, and has significant holdings in the USA, Canada and Australia.

Donald Trump may be America's most famous real estate tycoon but another Donald qualifies as the nation's wealthiest. In 1958, Bren, who is now 87, constructed his first home in Newport Beach, California with a $10,000 (£7.8k) loan and eventually gained control of the venerable Irvine Company, which has enjoyed remarkable success building suburban master-planned communities and managing buildings in California and other parts of the US.

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Together with his family, 54-year-old Tos Chirathivat is the richest property tycoon in Thailand. He is at the helm of Central Group, which was founded by his grandfather Tiang in 1947. The multibillion-dollar conglomerate owns and operates everything from shopping malls to hotels and private residences in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and other Asian countries.

Xu Jiayin aka Hui Ka Yan, 60, is the world's wealthiest real estate mogul by a long-shot. The third-richest person in China, Xu started Evergrande Group in 1997 and has turned it into China's second-largest property developer not to mention the world's most valuable real estate company. The business has developed more than 700 projects across China and turned over $70 billion (£55bn) last year.

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