For all her palaces, country estates, jewels and art collections, Queen Elizabeth II ranks no higher than joint 180th in the closely-watched Sunday Times league table of Britain's richest people.

As the 15th wealthiest woman in the kingdom, she is worth 270 million pounds (US$470 million), a slight edge on pop diva Madonna, according to the newspaper's authoritative Rich List 2005 calculations.

Her personal investment portfolio was valued at 100 million pounds (US$174 million). These diversified interests even saw her become an Internet millionaire during the dot.com boom in the late 1990s.

Her personal property, such as the Sandringham and Balmoral estates, where the royal family spend winter and summer respectively, is worth a further 80 million pounds (US$139 million).

The valuation of her wealth includes: jewels, cars, her beloved horses and the royal stamp collection, which is the world's finest private collection.

Oddly, the sovereign also owns all the swans, whales, dolphins and sturgeon in British waters.

Her private art collection was valued at 2 million pounds (US$3.48 million).

The Royal Collection, which extends to 9,000 paintings, 3,000 miniatures and a host of other works, is worth perhaps 10 billion pounds (US$17.4 billion), but as it belongs to the reigning monarch it is not counted as part of Queen Elizabeth's own personal assets.

If it were, she would be among the world's top 20 richest people.

The queen, patron of over 620 charities and organizations, donated almost 600,000 pounds (US$1,044,000) to charities over the previous year, according to the Rich List.

Her personal income comes largely from the Duchy of Lancaster, which consists of a private land estate, property and assets.

The duchy made a 9.8-million-pound (US$17-million) surplus in the financial year ending March 2005.

Since 1993, she has voluntarily paid tax on her personal income 40 per cent, as set by law for someone in the upper tax bracket.

While the money is private, the queen uses the larger part of it to meet the official expenses incurred by other royals. Only Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip receive payments from parliament, which she does not reimburse.

Source:China Daily