The area of modern Zhejiang was outside the major sphere of influence of the Shang civilization during the second millennium BC. Instead, this area was populated by peoples collectively known as the Hundred Yue, including the Dongyue and the Ouyue. The kingdom of Yue began to appear in the chronicles and records written during the Spring and Autumn Period. According to the chronicles, the kingdom of Yue was located in northern Zhejiang. Shiji claims that its leaders were descended from the Shang founder Yu the Great. Evidence suggests that Baiyue and the kingdom of Yue possessed their own culture and history that are different from those kingdoms in north and central China, whose cultures and histories were carefully recorded in chronicles and histories during the Spring and Autumn Period and into the Qin dynasty. The Song of the Yue Boatman (Chinese: 越人歌, p Yuèrén Gē, lit. "Song of the man of Yue") was transliterated into Chinese and recorded by authors in north China or inland China of Hebei and Henan around 528 BC. The song shows that the Yue people spoke a language that was mutually unintelligible with the dialects spoken in north and inland China. The Yue peoples seem to have had their own written script. The Sword of Goujian bears bird-worm seal script. Yuenü (Chinese: 越女; pinyin: Yuènǚ; Wade–Giles: Yüeh-nü; literally: "the Lady of Yue") was a swordswoman from the state of Yue. In order to check the growth of the kingdom of Wu, Chu pursued a policy of strengthening Yue. Under King Goujian, Yue recovered from its early reverses and fully annexed the lands of its rival in 473 BC. The Yue kings then moved their capital center from their original home around Mount Kuaiji in present-day Shaoxing to the former Wu capital at present-day Suzhou. With no southern power to turn against Yue, Chu opposed it directly and, in 333 BC, succeeded in destroying it. Yue's former lands were annexed by the Qin Empire in 222 BC and organized into a commandery named for Kuaiji in Zhejiang but initially headquartered in Wu in Jiangsu.

Who populated the areas of Zhejiang in the 2nd millennium BC?