Wang Jianlin, founder and chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, topped the ranking of China's 50 richest property developers for the third time in four years, the Hurun Research Institute said yesterday.

With 135 billion yuan (US$22 billion) in personal assets based on calculation as of August 15 by Hurun, 59-year-old Wang is said to have made 110 billion yuan from his real estate business, a figure which more than doubled that of last year.

By the end of last year, Dalian Wanda owned 12.9 million square meters of properties ranging from shopping plazas, five-star hotels, resorts, department stores to office buildings. The group has gained financially this year from a backdoor listing of Dalian Wanda Commercial Property in Hong Kong in March as the shares of its acquired shell company Hengli Commercial Properties have risen multi-fold.

Yang Huiyan, heiress to Country Garden, and her family followed Wang in the ranking with 42.5 billion yuan worth of property-related assets. Yang is the richest woman on the Chinese mainland this year. Third on the list with 35 billion yuan is Chen Lihua of Fu Wah International, who is currently the richest self-made woman in the world, according to Hurun.

The booming real estate market this year saw the cut-off point in the ranking for the property tycoons rise 25 percent to its highest level of 7.5 billion yuan, propelling the average wealth level by 22.5 percent to 15.7 billion yuan.