Cham peoples include many different ethnic groups located mainly along the Truong Son plateau and in the river plains of the southern central provinces. From the ancient Champa kingdom, this region has been known as a sea empire, a mercantile kingdom where residents mainly live by commercial development. Therefore, even when the kingdom of Champa ceased to exist as an independent country, the inhabitants of Champa were still connoisseurs of trade in the watersheds and along rivers. They buy and hold the resources and flavours in the high mountains; take the role of coordinating, and concentrating the sources of goods in the watershed areas and dealing with traders in the lowlands; connecting and transporting goods along river trade routes to central coastal ports from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. Therefore, Cham people played a significant role in the economic and commercial development of the Inner Region (Dang Trong) under the Nguyen lords, through which the process of integration among communities also became favourable.
