The Singapore Straits is among the most geographically strategic sites in the maritime world. Ships sailing between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean had to, and still have to, sail around the southern coast of Singapore. Over the centuries, control over ...
Amber Road is an “L”-shaped road that connects the junction of Haig Road and Mountbatten Road to Tanjong Katong Road. The road name was linked to the family of Joseph Aaron Elias, a successful Jewish businessman in early 20th-century Singapore. A popular landmark ...
Anson Road is located in the Tanjong Pagar area and begins near a carpark around Keppel Road, then bifurcates into two roads – one merges into Keppel Road while the other proceeds as a one-way road connecting to the junction of Robinson Road and Maxwell Road. It ...
Beach Road stretches from the junction where it meets Crawford Street and Republic Avenue to the junction where it meets Stamford Road. It was historically designated a part of the European Town. Once lined with beautiful villas, Beach Road today marks the boundary ...
Boat Quay, a river embankment on the south bank of the Singapore River, is one of the oldest and most historical areas in Singapore’s central region. For more than 150 years, warehouses (or godowns) thriving with economic activity lined the banks of north and south ...
Chin Chew Street, in Chinatown, connects South Bridge Road and China Street. An Indian residential area in the 1820s, it later became synonymous with the samsui women who made this street their home in the early 20th century.
The robber crab (Birgus latro) is the largest of the various crab species found on Christmas Island. Able to climb trees, the crabs only return to water during breeding season to lay eggs. However, the most notorious crab species is the red crab (Gecarcoidea natalis), ...
Coney Island, also known as Pulau Serangoon, is located off the coast of Punggol in northeastern Singapore. Originally just 13 ha, the island now spans 100 ha after a series of reclamation projects. A 50-hectare park managed by the National Parks Board was opened ...
Craig Road begins from the junction of Neil Road and Keong Saik Road and ends at Tanjong Pagar Road. Named after Captain James Craig, an officer in the Merchant Service Guild and member of the Freemason Zetland Lodge, the road was where the poor people in Chinatown ...
Dalhousie Pier, also known as Dalhousie Ghaut, was a 19th-century jetty located near the mouth of the Singapore River, in the vicinity of the former Empress Place Building (now Asian Civilisations Museum). The pier was named after the Marquis of Dalhousie, James ...
The sovereignty of Christmas Island was transferred from Singapore (then a Crown colony of the United Kingdom) to the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 October 1958 under the Transfer to Australia Order in Council, 1958. At the close of the day on 30 September, the ...
On 23 November 1955, the administrative responsibility for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands was transferred from the Colony of Singapore to the Commonwealth of Australia. The Cocos Islands had been part of the Straits Settlements until 1946 when the latter was dissolved, ...
Urban planning in Singapore began in the 1820s when Stamford Raffles implemented a land-use plan later known as the Raffles Town Plan. However, for most of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, Singapore’s physical growth was haphazard and largely ...
Jurong used to be a mangrove swamp before it was developed into an industrial estate in 1961. Residential and recreational amenities were built in Jurong over the next two decades to attract people to live and work there and to facilitate the expansion of the estate. ...
Located off the southwestern coast of Singapore, Jurong Island is a manmade island formed through successive land reclamation works that joined up several offshore islands, namely Pulau Ayer Chawan, Pulau Ayer Merbau, Pulau Merlimau, Pulau Pesek, Pulau Pesek Kechil ...
Singapore’s first industrial estate is located in Jurong. Before its transformation into an industrial estate, Jurong was a landscape covered in forest and swamp, with crocodile-infested rivers. There were also fish and prawn ponds. Reclamation work began in the ...
Kallang is bounded by the northeastern boundary of the Central Area, the Central Expressway, the Pan Island Expressway, the proposed Kallang Expressway, Mountbatten Road and the East Coast Parkway. It covers nine subzones and a total area of 920.7 ha. Some of Singapore’s ...
Kim Seng Constituency was located in the Bukit Merah area, within Singapore’s Central Region. It was named after Tan Kim Seng, a successful businessman and leader of the Chinese community in the 19th century. The constituency’s original boundaries were Indus Road ...
Kreta Ayer Road, a one-way road in the heart of Chinatown, connects Neil Road to New Bridge Road. The road is historically important as it was the name given to Chinatown in the early 1800s and was known as tua poh (greater town district) in 19th-century Chinatown. ...
Kusu Island is located 5.6 km south-west of Singapore. A Chinese temple and three Malay keramat (shrine) on the island attract thousands of pilgrims annually, especially in the 9th lunar month that falls between September and October. Kusu means “tortoise” or “turtle” ...
Liu Thai Ker (b. 23 February 1938 Muar, Johor, Malaysia –) is noted for his influence on Singapore's urban landscape as the former chief executive officer of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). Trained as an architect, ...
Mountbatten Estate is one of the five subzones in the Marine Parade area within Singapore’s Central Region. It spans a total area of 161 ha. It was named after Lord Louis Mountbatten, who later became Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Today, Mountbatten Estate is described ...
The mouth of the Singapore River was the point at which the Singapore River drained into the Singapore Strait. With the establishment of Singapore as a trading port during colonial times, the mouth of the river functioned as a harbour at which ships called. The ...
Nankin Street, a one-way street in Chinatown, connects South Bridge Road to China Street. The street is named after the city of Nanking in China. It was associated with the Samsui women who lived in Singapore as well as tinsmiths who set up shop on this street ...
Neil Road in Chinatown is a one-way road that begins at South Bridge Road and ends at two points – one leads into Kampong Bahru Road and the other to the junction of New Bridge Road and Eu Tong Sen Street. Originally known as Silat, Selat or Salat Road, it was ...
Pedra Branca is an outlying island situated about 24 nautical miles (45 km) to the east of mainland Singapore. It is located at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Strait, from the South China Sea. The island is a reef of light grey granite, although corals have ...
A tiny islet, Pulau Anak Bukom (Malay for “child of Bukom”) lies next to the much larger and heavily industrialised Pulau Bukom Besar. Pulau Anak Bukom is noted as a nesting and roosting site for resident shore birds.
Pulau Biola is a tiny islet located at the southern extremities of Singapore’s southern islands. The islet is known for its rich biodiversity of coral reefs and marine life, which are relatively unspoilt compared with elsewhere in Singapore.
Pulau Brani, which means “isle of the brave” in Malay, is an island situated at the south of Singapore’s Central Region. It was once home to the Orang Laut. For a while, the island had a brick kiln, a coal depot, a tin smelting plant and a ship-repairing dock. ...
Located 5.5 km southwest of mainland Singapore, the offshore island of Pulau Bukom (also spelt “Bukum”) houses an integrated oil and petrochemicals site with manufacturing facilities for fuels, lubricant base oils and specialty chemicals. It was known as Pulau ...
Pulau Busing is an offshore island south of Singapore, near Pulau Bukom. It had a land area of 2.5 ha before reclamation. Heavily industrialised, the island is home to oil and chemical storage facilities, at least one marine offshore terminal, and a fuel oil refinery. ...
Pulau Meskol was a small island of 6.1 ha in a cluster of islands lying south of Jurong on the Singapore mainland. It was merged with neighbouring islands to form Jurong Island, where the petrochemical and petroleum industry is located.
Pulau Palawan is an islet lying off the southern coast of Sentosa Island. Originally a reef called Terembu Palawan, its name was changed to Pulau Palawan after it was reclaimed. Pulau Palawan is not physically connected to Sentosa, and should not to be mistaken ...
Pulau Pawai is an island located south-west of Singapore. Known as Alligator Island during colonial times, the island was described as having a conspicuous summit of about 147 ft, and was extensively fringed with coral reefs. A large reef found in 1946 separates ...
Pulau Satumu, or “one tree island”, was formerly known as Coney Island. The origin of its name could have been derived from the Malay language with “sa” referring to satu (meaning one) and “tumu” referring to the large mangrove tree, Bruguiera confugata. It is ...
Pulau Seking (also known as Pulau Sakeng or Siking) is one of the islands off Singapore’s south coast. It was home to the last Southern island kampong (village) community, before the islanders were resettled to make way for the development of a landfill.
Pulau Semakau is popularly known as one of the southern islands off the main island of Singapore. In the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) 1997 Concept Plan, however, Pulau Semakau was identified as one of the western islands. Located approximately 8 km south ...
Pulau Senang is one of Singapore’s southern islands. Its land area is about 81.7 ha, and it is located 24 km from the mainland. Now a military live-firing zone, Pulau Senang is famous for being a penal settlement from 1960 to 1963. The prison-without-bars experiment ...
Located off Singapore’s south coast, Pulau Sudong was classified as one of the Western Islands in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 1997 Concept Plan. A 1946 survey of the Singapore Strait described the island as measuring about 55 ft high to the top of the trees, ...
Pulau Tekong is an island off the northeastern coast of Singapore, with Selat Johore to the north and Serangoon Harbour to the south. There were originally two islands – the larger Pulau Tekong and the smaller Pulau Tekong Kechil – but land reclamation joined them ...
The current island of Pulau Tekong was originally composed of two distinct islands, Pulau Tekong Besar – the biggest natural offshore island in Singapore and commonly referred to as just Pulau Tekong – and the much smaller Pulau Tekong Kecil. Situated at the northeastern ...
Pulau Ubin is an island located on the north-eastern coast of Singapore, with Selat Johore to the north and Serangoon Harbour to the south. Its name is derived from its original Malay name, Pulau Batu Jubin, which means “Island of Granite Stones”. Granite quarries ...
The Raffles Town Plan, also known as the Jackson Plan, refers to Stamford Raffles’s plan for the town of Singapore formulated in late 1822. Lieutenant Philip Jackson drew up a plan according to Raffles’s vision and the resultant plan was published in 1828. The ...
Officially opened on 28 February 2014, River Safari is Asia’s first river-themed zoo. The S$160-million park attraction is spread across 12 ha of land in Mandai. Focused on freshwater habitat conservation, the safari houses the world’s biggest freshwater aquarium ...
Sengkang is an estate located in the northeast region of Singapore. Sengkang derived its name from a road called Lorong Sengkang, off Lorong Buangkok.
Sentosa is currently a resort island of some 500 ha off the south coast of Singapore. It was previously a fishing village, the site of a military installation with artillery batteries and a prisoner-of-war camp during the Japanese Occupation (1942–1945). Developed ...
Recognising the importance of family planning to national development, the government organised Singapore’s first national family planning campaign in 1960. The campaign aimed to raise public awareness on the need for family planning and the disadvantages of having ...
Sisters’ Islands is located south of Singapore and is made up of two islands that are separated by narrow but deep channels. The islands are individually known as Pulau Subar Darat (Little Sister’s Island) and Pulau Subar Laut (Big Sister’s Island) and each covers ...
St John's Island is a southern island famous for its history as a penal settlement but is now a holiday resort.
Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore on 28 January 1819. Travelling on the Indiana with a squadron that included the schooner Enterprise, he anchored at St John’s Island at 4.00 pm on 28 January 1819 and met with Temenggong Abdul Rahman. The site on the Singapore ...
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (b. 6 July 1781, off Port Morant, Jamaica–d. 5 July 1826, Middlesex, England) is known as the founder of modern Singapore. Besides signing the treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor on 6 February 1819 that gave the British East India ...
Sungei Road begins at the junction of Selegie Road and Serangoon Road and runs parallel to Rochor Canal Road. Translated literally, Sungei Road means “River Road”, a reference to the Rochor River that flows alongside the road. From the 1930s to 1980s, the road ...
Tanglin is an area whose hilly terrain includes Leonie, Cluny, Emerald, Mount Elizabeth, Claymore, Nassim and and Goodwood hills.
Telok Ayer Street extends from Market Street to Anson Road. Telok Ayer was designated a Chinese district by Stamford Raffles in 1822 and gained prominence in the 1820s because it served as the landing site for early immigrants. This led to a concentration of religious ...
Urban planning in Singapore aims to optimise the use of the country’s scarce land resources for the diverse needs of both current and future generations of residents. It involves allocating land for competing uses such as housing, commerce, industry, parks, transport, ...
Yan Kit Road in Tanjong Pagar is a one-way street connecting Craig Road to Cantonment Road. It was named after a well-known dentist, Look Yan Kit. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Yan Kit Road was considered a relatively safe residential area compared ...
Yio Chu Kang Road is a major road in the north of Singapore that connects Upper Thomson Road to Upper Serangoon Road. Asociated with gambier and pepper plantations and kampongs in the 19th century, the road today reflects the urban development of 20th-century Singapore. ...
Yishun New Town is bounded by Sungei Simpang Kiri to the north, the proposed Admiralty Road East Extension to the east, Seletar Expressway to the south and Sembawang Road to the west. The town is named after Lim Nee Soon, a prominent businessman in colonial Singapore. ...