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Singapore, officially the Republic of
Singapore , is an island city-state and the
smallest country in South-East Asia. It is located
on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, south of
the Malaysian state of Johor, and north of the
Indonesian Riau Islands. It lies just 137 kilometres
(85 miles) north of the Equator.
The site of several ancient port cities and a
possession of several empires in its history,
Singapore was a Malay fishing village when it
was colonised by the United Kingdom in the 19th
century. It was further occupied by the Japanese
Empire in World War II, and was later part of the
merger which established Malaysia. When Singapore
acquired independence, having few natural resources,
it was sociopolitically volatile and economically
undeveloped. Foreign investment and rapid
government-led industrialization has since created
an economy which relies on exports of electronics
and manufacturing primarily from its port.
More than 90% of Singapore's population lives
in housing estates constructed by the Housing
Development Board and nearly half uses the public
transport system daily. As a result of efforts to
control motorised traffic, the maintenance of
natural greenery, strict regulations on industrial
locations and emissions, and other pro-environmental
initiatives by the government and the private
sector, Singapore has been able to control
its pollution levels to well within World Health
Organization standards.
Singapore consists of 63 islands, including
the main island itself. There are two connections
from Singapore to the Malaysian state of
Johor — a man-made causeway known as the Johor-Singapore
Causeway to the north, crossing the Tebrau Straits,
and Tuas Second Link, a bridge in the western part
of Singapore that connects to Johor. Jurong
Island, Pulau Tekong, Pulau Ubin and Sentosa are the
largest of Singapore's many smaller islands.
The highest point of Singapore is Bukit Timah
Hill, with a height of 166 metres (538 ft).
The urban area used to be only concentrated on the
southern part of Singapore around the mouth
of the Singapore River and what is now the
Downtown Core, while the rest of the land was
tropical rainforest or used for agriculture. Since
the 1960s, the government has constructed new towns
in outlying areas, resulting in an entirely built-up
and urban landscape, although the Central Area, the
central business district, remains the densest. The
Urban Redevelopment Authority is a government agency
responsible for the urban planning of Singapore
that concentrates on efficient land use and
distribution, as well as transport flow. It has
released a Development Guide Plan which details
specific land use for each the 55 urban planning
areas of Singapore.
Singapore has reclaimed land with earth
obtained from its own hills, the seabed and
neighbouring countries. As a result, Singapore's
land area grew from 581.5 square kilometres (224.5
sq mi) in the 1960s to 697.2 square kilometres
(269.1 sq mi) today, and may grow by another 100
square kilometres (38.6 sq mi) by 2030. About 23% of
Singapore's land area consists of forest and
nature reserves.
The architecture of Singapore is extremely
varied and diverse. Due to the lack of available
space, few historical buildings remain in the urban
areas of Singapore. However, Singapore
has become a centre for modern architecture as older
buildings are cleared away to make space for newer,
larger buildings. Historically, the demand for
high-end buildings has been in and around the
Central Business District (CBD). After decades of
development, the CBD has become an area with many
tall business buildings. These buildings comprise
the skyline along the coast of Marina Bay and
Raffles Place, which is a famous tourist attraction
in Singapore. Due to the air restrictions in
Singapore, no building in Singapore is
to be taller than 280 metres. The three tallest
buildings in Singapore, namely Republic
Plaza, UOB Plaza One and OUB Centre, are all 280
metres in height.
Singapore is the second most densely
populated independent country in the world excluding
Macau and Hong Kong which are parts of PRC.
Eighty-four percent of Singaporeans live in
public housing provided by the Housing and
Development Board (HDB).The largest group in the
population of 4.35 million (as of June 2005) are the
Singaporean Chinese who account for 76.8% of
Singaporeans, making it one of the largest
Chinese cities outside of China. Nearby Malaysia is
also home to many ethnic Chinese. Singapore
is also diverse, with the Singaporean Malays,
who are the indigenous native group of the country,
constituting 13.9%, though this number includes many
Malay ethnic groups from other parts of the Malay
archipelago including the Javanese, Bugis, Baweans
and Minangkabau. Indian Singaporeans are the
third largest ethnic group at 7.9%, consisting of
several groups — Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan
Tamils, who form the largest Indian group, and
others such as Malayalees, Punjabis and Bengalis.
The rest are made up of smaller groups such as Arab
Singaporeans, Jews, Thais, Japanese, European
and the Eurasian Singaporean community.
Singapore is also a multi-religious country,
due mainly to its location on one of the world's
major transportation routes. More than 40% of
Singaporeans practice Buddhism. About 15%
practice Christianity (mostly Chinese and Indians),
and 15% profess no religion. Muslims (mostly Malays)
account for 14%. A smaller minority practices
Taoism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Baha'i Faith, and others.
Singapore is a major Asian transportation
hub, strategically lying on major sea and air trade
routes. Its history has been closely tied to the
growth of its transportation industry since the
establishment of its port. The transportation
industry comprises over 10% of Singaporean
GDP despite an increasingly diversified economy. The
Port of Singapore, managed by port operators
PSA International and Jurong Port, was the world's
busiest port in 2005 in terms of shipping tonnage
handled with 1.15 billion gross tons handled, and in
terms of containerised traffic, with 23.2 million
Twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) handled. It was
also the world's second busiest in terms of cargo
tonnage, coming behind Shanghai with 423 million
tons handled. In addition, Singapore is the
world's busiest hub for transhipment traffic and the
world's biggest ship refuelling hub.
Singapore is a major aviation hub and an
important stopover point for the 'Kangaroo route'
between Australasia and Europe. Singapore
Changi Airport has a network of 81 airlines
connecting Singapore to 179 cities in 57
countries (2005). It is one of the top five airports
in Asia in terms of passengers handled, with 30
million passengers passing through in 2004. It has
been consistently rated as one of the best
international airports by numerous international
travel magazines. It was also rated as the world's
best airport in year 2006 by Skytrax, defeating its
long time rival, Hong Kong International Airport.A
low-cost terminal, the Budget Terminal, which
started operation in March 2006 and a third
passenger terminal now under construction will
increase the airport's total annual capacity to 66.7
million passengers by 2008. The national carrier
Singapore Airlines (SIA) is internationally
renowned for its service and will be the first
airline in the world to fly the new Airbus A380
commercially.
The backbone of domestic transport infrastructure is
the road transport system which includes a network
of expressways that form the arteries between
distinct towns and regional centres as laid out in
Singapore's urban planning. Following a
government study assisted by the United Nations
Development Programme which foresaw problems with
private transport such as traffic congestion and air
pollution as the city grew, the Land Transport
Authority began a series of measures to develop the
use of the public transport system such as improving
the nation's bus service and liberalising the hired
vehicle market to allow for more taxi operators.
Since 1987, the heavy rail passenger Mass Rapid
Transit (MRT) metro system has been in operation.
MRT was later augmented by and linked to the Light
Rapid Transit (LRT) light rail system, which
provides service to several expanses of housing
estates. The EZ-Link system allows contactless
smartcards to serve as stored value tickets for use
in the public transport systems. More than 2.8
million people use the bus network daily, while more
than 1.3 million people use either the LRT or MRT as
part of their daily routine. Approximately 900,000
people use the taxi services daily. Private vehicle
use in the Central Area is discouraged by tolls
implemented through an Electronic Road Pricing
system which operates during hours of heavy road
traffic. |