German Chancellor Angela Merkel retained her most powerful woman status Forbes magazine's list released on Thursday. It is the fourth straight year that she was recognised for wielding power, but she has been number 1 on the list nine times.

On second place is U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen who made it to the list for the first time because of her being the first female to lead the U.S. central bank.

Third placer is Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and wife of the founder of Microsoft.

Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person and at one point the wealthiest woman in the world, is ranked 27th as she slipped from her 2013 ranking of 16th. Rinehart owns Hancock Prospecting, which is into mining of iron ore and coal.

Gail Kelly, chief executive of Westpac and the only other Australian on the list of the top 100 powerful women in the world, moved up to 56th place from 62nd spot in 2013, while kicked out of the list is Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, who last year was in 28thplace.

Forbes drew the list from a preliminary list of 250 candidates from different parts of the world from eight categories, namely: billionaires, business, celebrity, finance, media, philanthropy and NGOs, politics and technology.

In ranking them per category and overall rank, the magazine based it on money, media presence, spheres of influence and impact.

Rounding up the top 10 are Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty.