Cantonese merchants (Cantonese Jyutping: Jyut6 soeng1; Traditional Chinese: 粵商) refers to merchants of Cantonese origin, though sometimes it is used to include Hakka and Teochew merchants who originated from the Southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where Cantonese people have been the dominant demographic. For most of the second millennium AD, some important ports of successive Chinese dynasties have been situated in Guangdong, resulting in the formation of a distinct business culture which many cultural studies and business scholars have sought to examine.[1][2]