Forbes Magazine has released its annual list of the richest in the world, and after a few years of being off the top of the list, Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates once again tops the list of richest in the world.

According to India's Economic Times, Gates was kept off the top of the list for the past four years by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, but this year he resumed the top spot. Gates's fortune rose by $9 BILLION over this past year, bringing his net worth to more than $76 billion.

Gates and Slim are joined by a variety of Indian billionaires on the list, including Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chief Mukesh Ambani, whose net worth of $46 billion ranked him in the top 5 of the richest in the world at one point, but who is now ranked at number 56.

Also worthy of note is the fact that there are 172 women on the Forbes Richest list this year, up from 138 last year.

In addition, this year's biggest gainer was none other than Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth jumped to $28.5 billion (up from $15 billion last year) thanks to the increase of his shares in the company.

The richest woman on the list is Christy Walton, who came in at #9. She is part of the hereditary Wal-Mart wealth, and her net worth is $36.7 billion. (Meanwhile, Wal-Mart workers have to fight for fair wages and health care... and God forbid they unionize...)

Forbes estimates that there are over 1,600 billionaires in the world, and their net aggregate worth is over $6 trillion (enough to cure the national debt, and still leave enough left over to live comfortably for the rest of their lives). Most interestingly of all, two-thirds of these billionaires built their own fortunes -- less than 15 percent of these billionaires inherited the wealth they accrued. (This fact proves that the Horatio Alger-like American dream of upward mobility is, indeed, a valid and viable option.)