Forbes released its "World’s Most Powerful People 2016" list Thursday, providing 74 names the magazine considered most influential this year.
The people included on the list represent about 1 out of every 100 million people living on the Earth right now, Forbes noted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was ranked No. 1 on the list for the fourth consecutive year, just above this year’s U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who was also named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2016.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and leader in the European Union, was the highest-ranking woman on the list at No. 3. Pope Francis was No. 5, since he is the leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide.
Other notable people on the list include Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who controls 20 percent of the world’s known oil reserves (No. 16); Tesla and SpaceX CEO and visionary billionaire Elon Musk (No. 21); and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un (No. 45).
Other women on the list included U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen (No. 6), U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May (No. 13), and International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde (No. 25).
Several new names on the list have recently become involved in President-elect Trump’s administration in some way, although they were powerful in their own right even before that development: CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick (No. 64), Vice President-Elect Mike Pence (No. 69), and Disney CEO Bob Iger (No. 67).
Forbes readily admits the list is necessarily somewhat subjective and invites readers to comment and debate about who they view as the most powerful people in the world.
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