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Top 10 luxury homes

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-05-26 12:02

The World in Guangzhou, Nanjing Zhongshan International Golf Villa and Tomson Riviera in Shanghai ranked as the top three on the list of China's Ten Most Expensive Homes in 2010, according to the World Executive Group.

Let's compare them with the world's top 10 luxury homes and find out which ones are more luxurious.

No 1 in the world

Villa Leopolda, France

Villa Leopolda is a large villa in the French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. It was built in 1902 by King Leopold II of Belgium as a present for his mistress and derives its name from him.

The villa appeared in the news in the summer of 2008 with reports of the Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov having purchased the home at a price of approximately 500 million euros ($736m). However, Prokhorov's spokesman denied that he was the purchaser.

In February 2010, a Nice court decided that Prokhorov could not demand back the 39 million-euro down payment made in 2008 and had to pay an additional 1.5 million euros of interest.

The price reported at the occasion of the lawsuit was 370 million euros, which still would have made it probably the world's most expensive villa.

No 1 in China

The World in Guangzhou, China

This project in Guangzhou was designed by 70 architects both at home and abroad and includes 70 villas. The average price for a villa is 76.28 million yuan ($11.17 million), while the most expensive one costs more than 200 million yuan.