Europe is home to many of the most powerful and economically developed countries in the world, as well as more than 740 million people.
But only eight of the 50 richest people in the world come from the continent — and half of them inherited their fortunes. The others, including second-richest person on earth Amancio Ortega, forged their fortunes in fashion and furniture.
This comes from new data provided to Business Insider by Wealth-X, a company that conducts research on the super-wealthy, featured in our recent ranking of the world's richest people. Wealth-X maintains a database of dossiers on more than 110,000 ultra-high-net-worth people, using a proprietary valuation model to discern the size of their fortunes.
Read on to learn more about the richest people in Europe, including a man who has a near-monopoly on eyewear and the founder of the world's largest furniture maker.
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8. Leonardo Del Vecchio
Net worth:$19.7 billion
Age: 80
Country: Italy
Industry: Eyewear
Source of wealth: Self-made; Luxottica Group
Even at 80, Leonardo Del Vecchio still chairs Luxottica, the nearly $30 billion company he founded in 1961. The largest eyewear company on the planet, Luxottica not only owns Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ban, and Oakley, but manufacturers glasses for nearly every luxury brand out there, including Burberry, Chanel, Prada, and Versace.
Though Del Vecchio started Luxottica as a tiny one-room enterprise in Milan, it now operates 10 factories worldwide, employs 35,000 people, and produces more than 65,000 pairs of glasses per day, holding a veritable monopoly on the eyewear industry.
Del Vecchio isn't all business, though. Last March, he showed his generous side by giving his Italian employees $10 million worth of shares in the company to celebrate his 80th birthday.
7. Dieter Schwarz
6. Georg Schaeffler
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