Fortune 500
Annual list of largest US corporations
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- 4 chapters
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Through Joint-stock company and Privately held company
History
The Fortune 500, created by Edgar P. Smith, was first published in January 1955. The original top ten companies were General Motors, Jersey Standard, U.S. Steel, General Electric, Esmark, Anderson-Prichard Oil Corporation, Armour, Gulf Oil, Chrysler, Mobil, and DuPont.
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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.
Influence
The companies on the 2026 Fortune 500 had combined revenue of $21 trillion and combined profits of $2.1 trillion.
Overview
The following is the list of top 20 companies.
Breakdown by state
This is the list of the top 18 states with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2024.
Breakdown by metropolitan area
This is the list of the top 10 metropolitan statistical areas with the most companies within the Fortune 500 as of 2024.

