The country borders South China Sea to the east, the Strait of Malacca to the west, and the Riau Islands lie to the south. Singapore is the largest port in Southeast Asia and one of the busiest maritime ports in the world. Singapore (officially, Republic of Singapore) is a unitary state and is divided into 5 Community Development Councils (CDCs). To the south of the main island, the Southern Islands, a collection of about 60 islets, provide a different perspective of Singapore’s geography.
Economy
Numerous parks and reserves occupy the island, so while it is an urban environment, there how to read an income statement is significant greenery contending for space. The new towns—such as Woodlands, Tampines, and Yishun—are scattered across the island and are characterized by easy access to places of employment and shopping districts. About four-fifths of Singapore’s population now resides in high-rise HDB flats located in housing estates and new towns.
- A conservative ideology of “Asian values” evolved to replace British rule, based on “communal loyalty, distrust of government, and avoidance of individual or collective responsibility for wider public interests”, with less regard for human rights in the nascent Western sense.
- Requirements for this position, which were enacted by the PAP government, are extremely stringent, such that only a handful of people qualify for the candidacy.
- Other notable western orchestras in Singapore include Singapore National Youth Orchestra and the community-based Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra.
- The British governor Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore on 28 January 1819 and soon recognised the island as a natural choice for the new port.
- Singapore Airlines was formed in 1972 and Changi Airport was opened in 1981, replacing the international airport at Paya Lebar.
In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the country’s third prime minister. During Goh’s tenure, the country went through the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. The constitution was amended in 1991 to provide for an elected president with veto powers over the use of past reserves and key public service appointments.
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Singapore,f officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. However, like his father had done before him, he continued to bring libel and antidefamation lawsuits against detractors and political opponents, which earned him disapproval internationally and stirred discontent at home. Over the years, Singapore has made significant strides in many areas and has attracted an encouraging number of international accolades which recognise the city as vibrant and world-class. The outline map above represents Singapore, an island country and city state. Singapore is also an education hub, with more than 80,000 what is interest accrual international students in 2006. While the term “mother tongue” in general refers to the first language internationally, in Singapore’s education system, it is used to refer to the second language, as English is the first language.
The land
Instead, the government’s Housing and Development Board (HDB) has relocated commerce into separate districts and has created integrated residential communities inhabited by people with a mixture of incomes. The once-common Chinese shop-house, consisting of living quarters above a commercial establishment, gradually has been disappearing from the city. The older parts of the city have been substantially refurbished, especially along the Singapore River but elsewhere as well. The largest native animals are the long-tailed macaque (an Asian species of monkey), the slow loris (a large-eyed tailless nocturnal lemur), and the scaly anteater.
British colonisation
Beginning in the 1970s Singapore pursued an aggressive policy of economic growth based primarily on export manufacturing and trade. The ruling PAP termed its sweep of all parliamentary seats a mandate for its plans for reducing the economic effects of the British military withdrawal. In January 1968 the British government had announced that all British defense forces would be withdrawn from East and Southeast Asia (except Hong Kong) by the end of 1971. The PAP faced fresh dangers of subversion when Indonesian opposition to Malaysia took the form of military and economic confrontation (1964). The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), led by Lee Kuan Yew, had refused in 1959 to form a government until extreme left-wing leaders of the party who had been detained by the colonial authorities were released. Elected ministers and a Legislative Assembly with an elected majority assumed government responsibility in 1955, except for matters of defense and foreign policy.
Development of the port of Singapore
Km, the country is home to a population of over 5 million residents. It represents part of a comprehensive water catchment system that spans two-thirds of the city’s area. The Marina Bay Reservoir, for instance, is a significant body of water located in the heart of the city. This region contains the Central Area, also called the city area, and is the country’s economic core. Singapore, an island city-state in Southeast Asia, lies off the southern edge of the Malay Peninsula and has a total area of about 734 km2 (281 mi2). A dense network of short streams drains the island, but floods are locally severe because the streams have low gradients and because of excessive water runoff from cleared land.
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As of mid-2025, Singapore’s total population stood at 6,110,200, of whom 3,660,200 (59.9%) were citizens and the remaining 2,450,000 (40.1%) were either permanent residents (543,800, 8.9%) or international students, foreign workers, or dependants (1,906,700, 31.2%). Tourism is a major industry and contributor to the Singaporean economy, attracting 13.6 million international tourists in 2023, more than double Singapore’s total population. Singapore’s approach does not rely only on physical infrastructure; it also emphasises proper legislation and enforcement, water pricing, public education as well as research and development. Singapore considers water a national security issue and the government has sought to emphasise conservation.
In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama. The Annals state that Sang Nila Utama encountered a strange beast on the island that he took to be a lion. While it is constitutionally a multi-party democracy where free elections are regularly held, it functions as a de facto one-party state, with the People’s Action Party (PAP) maintaining continuous political dominance since 1959. Multi-racialism is enshrined in the constitution and continues to shape national policies. As a highly developed country, Singapore has the highest PPP-adjusted GDP per capita in the world and is the only country in Asia with a AAA sovereign credit rating from all major rating agencies. Ideological differences led to Singapore’s expulsion from the federation two years later; it became an independent sovereign country in 1965.
The PAP, self-described as pragmatic, have a syncretic ideology combining free-market principles, civil nationalism, and welfarism. MPs host weekly political surgeries, called “Meet-the-People Sessions”, where they help constituents resolve personal issues which can be related to housing, financial assistance, and immigration. In group representation constituencies (GRCs), political parties assemble teams of candidates to contest elections. Requirements for this position, which were enacted by the PAP government, are extremely stringent, such that only a handful of people qualify for the candidacy.
A series of strikes in 1947 caused massive stoppages in public transport and other services. Meanwhile, Tomoyuki Yamashita was tried by a US military commission for war crimes, but not for crimes committed by his troops in Malaya or Singapore. When the British force of 60,000 troops surrendered on 15 February 1942, British prime minister Winston Churchill called the defeat “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”. As a consequence, after World War II broke out in 1939, the fleet was fully occupied with defending Britain, leaving Singapore vulnerable to Japanese invasion. The plan was for the Home Fleet to sail quickly to Singapore in the event of an emergency.
On 9 August 1965, the Malaysian Parliament voted 126 to 0 to pass a can a company’s working capital turnover ratio be negative constitutional amendment bill, thereby separating Singapore from Malaysia, which left Singapore as a newly independent country. The British government, for its part, believed that the merger would prevent Singapore from becoming a haven for communism. UMNO leaders believed that the additional Malay population in the Bornean territories would balance Singapore’s Chinese population. He resigned and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock in 1956, and after further negotiations Britain agreed to grant Singapore full internal self-government for all matters except defence and foreign affairs on 3 June 1959. During the 1950s, Chinese communists, with strong ties to the trade unions and Chinese schools, waged a guerrilla war against the government, leading to the Malayan Emergency.
- In response, the PAP introduced several significant political changes, including the creation of the Non-constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) scheme from the 1984 election, which allowed a limited number of the best performing losing opposition candidates to be appointed as MPs.
- It also hosted the 2015 Ma–Xi meeting, the first meeting between the political leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1950.
- Even after the merger, the Singaporean government and the Malaysian central government disagreed on many political and economic issues.
- Km, the country is home to a population of over 5 million residents.
In 1824, a further treaty with the Sultan led to the entire island becoming a part of the British Empire. The island was then nominally ruled by Tengku Abdul Rahman, the Sultan of Johor, who was controlled by the Dutch and the Bugis. The British governor Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore on 28 January 1819 and soon recognised the island as a natural choice for the new port. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, and the island faded into obscurity for the next two centuries. These Indianised kingdoms were characterised by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability.
In 2021, the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index ranked Singapore as 17th overall among the world’s 193 countries for adherence to the rule of law. All public gatherings of five or more people require police permits, and protests may legally be held only at the Speakers’ Corner. The judicial system is based on English common law, continuing the legal tradition established during British rule and with substantial local differences. According to Gordon P. Means, professor emeritus of political science at McMaster University, Singapore reinvented the “benevolent” yet “highly authoritarian” colonial system of governance inherited from Britain rather than forging a full democracy. Despite promulgating restrictions on civil liberties, Singapore under the PAP has seen consistent economic growth and political stability.
Singapore has the world’s eleventh largest foreign reserves, and one of the highest net international investment position per capita. The government has disputed Amnesty’s claims, stating that their “position on abolition of the death penalty is by no means uncontested internationally” and that the report contains “grave errors of facts and misrepresentations”. The government spent 2.7% of the country’s GDP on the military in 2024, the highest in the region. A conservative ideology of “Asian values” evolved to replace British rule, based on “communal loyalty, distrust of government, and avoidance of individual or collective responsibility for wider public interests”, with less regard for human rights in the nascent Western sense. One of the five founding members of ASEAN, Singapore is also the headquarters of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council Secretariat and is the host city of many international conferences and events.
Singapore has a highly developed market economy, based historically on extended entrepôt trade. In response, amendments were made to the Women’s Charter by the government in 2019 to legislate more serious punishments for traffickers, including imprisonment of up to seven years and a fine of S$100,000. Pimps often traffic women from neighbouring countries such as China, Malaysia and Vietnam at their brothels as well as rented apartments and hostels for higher profit margins when they get a cut from customers. In 2021, six Singaporeans protested for improved trans protections in the educational system outside the Ministry of Education headquarters at Buona Vista. Lee described this as a compromise between the conservative (and often religious) and progressive elements of Singaporean society to prevent further political fracturing.