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Singapore: Singapore Island
built 650 days ago
Less than 5% of Singapore's land is used for agriculture. Tropical fruits, orchids, and vegetables are intensively cultivated; rubber and copra are produced; and poultry, hogs, and tropical fish are raised. There are no exploitable natural resources in the country. Its power is produced by thermoelectric plants, and water is supplied by a number of reservoirs. Singapore has a fine rapid transit system, good roads, a railroad that crosses the island, and a causeway carrying road and rail traffic to the mainland.
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The early onset of town planning in colonial Singapore came largely through a "divide and rule" framework where the different ethnic groups were settled in different parts of the South of the island. The Singapore River was largely a commercial area that was dominated by traders and bankers of various ethnic groups with mostly Chinese and Indian coolies working to load and unload goods from barge boats known locally as "bumboats". The Malays, consisting of the local "Orang Lauts" who worked mostly as fishermen and sea-farers, and Arab traders and scholars were mostly found in the South-east part of the river mouth, where Kampong Glam stands today. The European settlers, who were few then, settled around Fort Canning Hill and further upstream from the Singapore River. Like the Europeans, the early Indian migrants ... settled more inland of the Singapore River, where Little India stands today. Very little is known about the rural private settlements in those times (known as kampongs), other than the major move by the post-independent Singapore government to re-settle these residents in the late 1960s.
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Singapore is a city state at south tip of peninsula Malaysia, opposite the twin city of Johor Bahru. It is an island approximately 30 by 20 km and inhabited by four million people. Main inhabitant groups are Chinese, Malay, Tamil and Eurasians. The symbol of Singapore is the Merlion.
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Since independence, Singapore has continued and accelerated the increase in the standard of living started under British rule in the 1950s. Foreign investment and government-led island-wide industrialization have created a modern economy based on electronics and manufacturing and featuring entrepôt and financial trade centred on the nation's strategic location. Singapore is the 17th wealthiest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita.[2] The geographically small nation has a foreign reserve of S$222 billion (US$147 billion).[3]
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The country of Singapore, consisting of Singapore island and some 50 smaller islands, is located in Southeast Asia at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. More than 3,000 multinational companies have offices on this tropical island at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca—the shortest sea route between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. As a trade center of the British Empire, Singapore attracted thousands of Chinese settlers—now 77 percent of the population. Independent since 1965, Singapore is Southeast Asia's financial hub and the world's busiest container port.
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Although Singapore's history dates from the 11th century, the island was little known to the West until the 19th century, when in 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived as an agent of the British East India Company. In 1824, the British purchased Singapore Island, and by 1825, the city of Singapore had become a major port, with trade exceeding that of Malaya's Malacca and Penang combined. In 1826, Singapore, Penang, and Malacca were combined as the Straits Settlements to form an outlying residency of the British East India Company; in 1867, the Straits Settlements were made a British Crown Colony, an arrangement that continued until 1946.
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Singapore Island