Nearly 11 million people worldwide are millionaires

Three million of those are in the U.S., which makes up the largest segment of HNWIs, or high net worth individuals. New report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch says the U.S., Japan and Germany account for 53 percent of the population with at least $1 million of investable assets. From MarketWatch:

The Asia-Pacific region had the strongest rate of growth in the high-net-worth population, with the ranks there rising 9.7% to 3.3 million individuals, putting it ahead of Europe, which had 3.1 million. The region's high-net-worth wealth level, which had already overtaken Europe in 2009, rose 12.1% to $10.8 trillion last year. One notable country in the Asia-Pacific region was India, whose high-net-worth population became the 12th largest in 2010, entering the country in the top 12 for the first time.

The "millionaire" metric does seem a bit antiquated these days, especially in a place like L.A., where there are supposedly more millionaires than anywhere else in the country. Having assets of $1 million hardly makes someone a "high net worth individual." Better measure of affluence might be at least $10 million.