The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortunemagazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporationsas ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune toexclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includespublicly and privately-held companies for which revenues are publiclyavailable. The first Fortune 500 list was published in 1955.

Although the Fortune 500 list is the most familiar one, similar grossrevenue lists of the top firms range from the highest ranking Fortune 100including the top one hundred to the broader ranking Fortune 1000 thatincludes the top thousand firms. While the membership on the smallerlists is somewhat stable, the ranking on the lists may change over time,depending upon revenues and often, because of mergers among firmsalready listed.

The original Fortune 500 was restricted to companies whose revenueswere derived from manufacturing, mining, or energy exploration. Atthe same time, Fortune published companion “Fortune 50” lists of the 50largest commercial banks, utilities, life insurance companies, retailers andtransportation companies. These have been consolidated into one single list,so the Fortune 500 as it exists today includes companies that in previousyears would have been on one of the “Fortune 50” list.

財富500 強(qiáng)是《財富》雜志每年匯編出版美國前500 家公司的排名。這些公司中既有私營企業(yè)也有上市公司，其排名依據(jù)為經(jīng)《財富》

調(diào)整扣除代征消費(fèi)稅后的總營業(yè)收入。榜單包含所有可通過公共渠道獲得營業(yè)收入數(shù)據(jù)的私營公司和上市公司。第一份財富500 強(qiáng)榜單公布于1955 年。

其實財富500 強(qiáng)榜單只是所有榜單中讀者最熟悉的一個，類似的總營業(yè)收入排名還有財富100 強(qiáng)排名和覆蓋面更大的財富1000 強(qiáng)排名，兩者分別列出了總營業(yè)收入最高的100 家公司和1000 家公司。雖然覆蓋面較小的榜單中包含的公司成員相對穩(wěn)定，但是榜單中的公司排名也會時常變化，這通常源于上榜公司之間的并購所帶來的營業(yè)收入的變化。

財富500 強(qiáng)最初只包括那些營業(yè)收入來自制造業(yè)、工礦業(yè)和能源開發(fā)行業(yè)的企業(yè)。同時，《財富》還刊登“財富50 強(qiáng)”，包括最大的商業(yè)銀行、公共事業(yè)公司、壽險公司、零售公司和運(yùn)輸公司?，F(xiàn)在兩個榜單已經(jīng)合二為一，所以今天財富500 強(qiáng)中的某些公司也曾在多年前出現(xiàn)在“財富50 強(qiáng)”上。