Check the Forbe's 2005 list of China's richest people and you'll see that 9 of the 10 top richest Chinese people are Southern Chinese mainly from Guangdong(alot from this province), Shanghai, Zhejiang and Fujian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Rich_List (you have to find their place of origin by search engine hehe).

Also recently, Yang Huiyan, 25 (from Shunde, Guangdong) became the richest person and women in China, here's the article http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007...tent_858858.htm

This goes to prove that Southern Chinese are more business oriented than Northern Chinese ^^ or are we?

In a article i read, China in 2006 had only 15 billionaires which is quite small if you compare it to the US. Out of curiosity, how many billionaires are there in Hong Kong? I heard rumours that HK has the most billionaires in Asia..is this true?

Correlation does not imply causation.

What's your point Andy Lau? Most of China's cities are located in the South/Southeast. This is simply a matter of geography.

That is not true.. there are alot of cities in the North as well like Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Harbin, Shenyang, etc =P What part of China are you from anyways Intranetusa ??

But does anyone know how many billionaires does hk have?

Yeah it is a matter of Geography. The return of Hong Kong in 1997opened up the Southern parts of China -- especially the Guangdong province. I think this is the reason why there are more industries in Southern China, therefore more billionaires...

It is actually much older, the first Special Economic Zones (Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Xiamen, Shantou and Hainan), opened in the early 80s, were all in the south (Guangdong mostly, and Fujian), so these regions have a 20 year headstart... It does help.

Francois

And consider the fact that most Huaqiao come from the south. Sending a little money home to help relatives will also have some effects on economic development.

yea guess so Lol Out of curiosity, how did Taiwan develop into such a strong economy? is it due to the captial from the Mainland during post 1949 when Chiang Kai Shek and others flew to the island of formosa OR the help from the US?