Singapore: history and heritage

About Singapore: history and heritage

By the ULTIMATE Singapore Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Singapore sits at the narrow tip of the Malay Peninsula, on the strait that links the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. A fourteenth-century port called Temasek, a Malay kingdom of Singapura and a British free port founded in 1819 all thrived on that position. Its people came from China, the Malay world, India and beyond, and their temples, mosques and shophouses stand side by side.

At a glance

Population: 6.04 million in June 2024, of whom 4.18 million are residents (Department of Statistics Singapore).

Names through history: Temasek (“sea town”), Singapura (“lion city”), Singapore.

On the strait between two oceans, a port that has drawn the peoples of Asia for seven centuries.

Peoples: Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian communities; English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil are all official languages, and Malay is the national language.

UNESCO: the Singapore Botanic Gardens (World Heritage, 2015) and Hawker culture (intangible heritage, 2020).

Temasek

In the fourteenth century a busy port called Temasek stood on the Singapore River; archaeologists have found its Chinese ceramics and gold ornaments on Fort Canning Hill, where Malay kings are said to have had their palace.

Singapura

The Malay Annals tell how a prince, Sang Nila Utama, saw a lion here and named the place Singapura, the lion city. The port declined around 1400, and for centuries the island was part of the Johor sultanate.

The free port

In 1819 Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company signed a treaty with the local rulers to set up a trading post. As a free port it grew fast, and in 1826 it joined Penang and Malacca as the Straits Settlements. The Raffles plan gave each community its own quarter, which is why Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India remain so distinct.

Many peoples

Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese Chinese came as traders and labourers; Malays and Bugis from across the archipelago; Tamils and other Indians as merchants and workers; and Peranakans, the descendants of early Chinese settlers who married locally, created their own cuisine and style. Thian Hock Keng (1842), the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, and the Sultan Mosque stand within a short walk of one another.

Independence

Japan occupied Singapore from 1942 to 1945. After the war it gained self-government, joined Malaysia in 1963 and became an independent republic on 9 August 1965, celebrated each year as National Day.

The garden city

From the 1960s Singapore planted trees along its roads and set out to become a city in a garden. The Botanic Gardens, founded in 1859, are World Heritage, Gardens by the Bay opened in 2012, and the hawker centres, where every community’s food meets, are on UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage.

Our advice: walk from Thian Hock Keng to the Sri Mariamman Temple, then on to Kampong Glam and the Sultan Mosque, and eat at a hawker centre on the way. End at Gardens by the Bay for the evening light show.

Sources

Population: Department of Statistics Singapore, Population in Brief 2024. History: National Heritage Board, Singapore; National Museum of Singapore; UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Singapore Botanic Gardens) and Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

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