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

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect.^[1] The list includes publicly and privately-held companies for which revenues are publicly available. The first Fortune 500 list was published in 1955.

Wal-Mart was the largest company on the list in 2007 and 2008. ExxonMobil was in second place^[2] in 2007 and 2008, but overtook Wal-Mart in 2009.^[3]

Although the Fortune 500 list is the most familiar one, similar gross revenue lists of the top firms range from the highest ranking Fortune 100 including the top one hundred to the broader ranking Fortune 1000 that includes the top thousand firms. Often the membership on the smaller lists is quite stable, however, the ranking on the lists may change over time, depending upon revenues and often, because of mergers among firms already listed.

[edit] See also

• Fortune Global 500
• Forbes Global 2000

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Permanent link
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2009
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2008
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2007
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 2006
• Full list of Fortune 500 companies - 1955-2005
• Downloadable (CSV) version of full list of Fortune 500/1000 companies - 1955-2009