Fortune 500

The July 24, 2006 issue of Fortune, featuring its Fortune 500 list

Fortune 500 company locations^[1]

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years.^[2] The list includes publicly held companies, along with privately held companies for which revenues are publicly available. The concept of the Fortune 500 was created by Edgar P. Smith, a Fortune editor, and the first list was published in 1955.^[3][4] The Fortune 500 is more commonly used than its subset Fortune 100 or wider list Fortune 1000.^[5]

Methodology

The original Fortune 500 was limited to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, and energy exploration. At the same time, Fortune published companion "Fortune 50" lists of the 50 largest commercial banks (ranked by assets), utilities (ranked by assets), life insurance companies (ranked by assets), retailers (ranked by gross revenues) and transportation companies (ranked by revenues). Fortune magazine changed its methodology in 1994 to include service companies. With the change came 291 new entrants to the famous list including three in the Top 10.^[6]

History

The Fortune 500 was first published in 1955; created by Edgar P. Smith.^[3] The original top ten companies were General Motors, Exxon Mobil, U.S. Steel, General Electric, Esmark, Chrysler, Armour, Gulf Oil, Mobil and DuPont.^[7]

Fortune 500 lists

• List of women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies
• List of Fortune 500 computer software and information companies

See also

• 40 under 40
• Fortune Global 500
• Fortune India 500
• List of largest companies by revenue
• Forbes Global 2000
• Total Fortune 1000 companies by urban area list

References

External links

• Permanent link
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies: 1955–2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016