Singapore
Singapore (
i
/spr/ or /spr/), officially
the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign city-
state and island country in Southeast Asia. It lies off the
southern tip of the Malay Peninsula and is 137 kilometres
(85 mi) north of the equator. The country's territory consists
of the lozenge-shaped main island, commonly referred to
as Singapore Island in English and Pulau Ujong in Malay,
and more than 60 significantly smaller islets.
[8]
Singapore is
separated from Peninsular Malaysia by theStraits of
Johor to the north, and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by
theSingapore Strait to the south. The country is
highly urbanised, and little of the original vegetation
remains. The country's territory has consistently expanded
through land reclamation.
The islands were settled in the second century AD and
subsequently belonged to a series of local empires. Modern
Singapore was founded in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles as
a trading post of the East India Companywith permission
from the Johor Sultanate. The British obtained sovereignty
over the island in 1824, and Singapore became one of the
British Straits Settlements in 1826. Occupied by the
Japanese duringWorld War II, Singapore declared
independence from the United Kingdom in 1963 and united
with other former British territories to form Malaysia, from
which it was expelled two years later through a unanimous
act of parliament. Since then, Singapore has developed
rapidly, earning recognition as one of the Four Asian Tigers.
Singapore is one of the world's major commercial hubs, with
the fourth-biggest financial centre and one of the five busiest
ports. Its globalised and diversified economy depends
heavily on trade, especially manufacturing, which
represented 26 percent of Singapore's GDP in 2005. In
terms of purchasing power parity, Singapore has the third-
highest per capita income in the world but one of the
world's highest income inequalities. It places highly in
international rankings with regard to education, healthcare,
and economic competitiveness. Just over five million people
live in Singapore, of which approximately two million are
foreign-born. While Singapore is diverse, ethnic Asians
predominate: 75 percent of the population is Chinese, with
significant minorities of Malays,Indians, and Eurasians.
There are four official languages, English, Malay, Mandarin,
and Tamil, and the country
promotes multiculturalism through a range of official
policies.
Singapore is a unitary multiparty parliamentary republic, with
aWestminster system of unicameral parliamentary
government. ThePeople's Action Party has won every
election since self-government began in 1959. The
dominance of the PAP, coupled with a low level of press
freedom and suppressed civil liberties and political rights,
has led to Singapore being classified as a semi-authoritarian
regime. One of the five founding members of
the Association of South East Asian Nations(ASEAN),
Singapore is also the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, and a member of the East
Asia Summit, the Non-Aligned Movement, and
the Commonwealth. Singapore's rapid development has
given it significant influence in global affairs, leading some
analysts to identify it as a middle power.
[9][10]
The English name of Singapore is derived from
the Malay word Singapura (Sanskrit:
, literally Lion
City), hence the customary reference to the nation as the
Lion City. However, it is most likely that lions never lived on
the island, and the beast seen by Sang Nila Utama, who
founded and named Singapore, was a tiger.
[11]
History
Temasek ('sea town'), a second century outpost of
the Sumatran Srivijaya empire, is the earliest known
settlement on Singapore. The island was part of the Sri
Vijaya Empire until it was invaded by the south Indian
Emperor Rajendra Chola I, of theChola Empire, in the 11th
century.
[12][13]
In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the
settlement and the island sank into obscurity for the next
two centuries.
[14]
Nominally, it belonged to the Johor
Sultanate during this period.
In 1819, Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived and signed a
treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, on behalf of the
British East India Company, to develop the southern part of
Singapore as a British trading post. In 1824, the entire
island became a British possession under a further treaty
with the Sultan, as well as theTemenggong.
[15]
In 1826,
Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the
jurisdiction of British India, becoming the regional capital in
1836.
[16]
Prior to Raffles' arrival, there were approximately
1,000 people living on the island, mostly indigenous
Malays along with a handful ofChinese.
[17]
By 1860, the
population exceeded 80,000 and more than half were
Chinese. Many immigrants came to work
atrubber plantations and, after the 1870s, the island became
a global centre for rubber exports.
[15]
During World War II, the Imperial Japanese
Army invaded British Malaya, culminating in the Battle of
Singapore. The British were defeated, surrendering on 15
February 1942. British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill called this "... the worst disaster and largest
capitulation in British history".
[18]
The Sook Ching
massacre of ethnic Chinese after the fall of Singapore
claimed between 5,000 and 25,000 lives.
[19]
The Japanese
occupied Singapore until the British repossessed it in
September 1945, after the Surrender of Japan.
[20]
Singapore's first general election in 1955 was won by David
Marshall, the pro-independence leader of the Labour Front.
He led a delegation to London to demand complete self-rule
but was turned down by the British. He subsequently
resigned and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock, whose
policies convinced Britain to grant Singapore full internal
self-government for all matters except defence and foreign
affairs.
[21]
A cheering crowd welcome the return of British forces, 1945
During the May 1959 elections, the People's Action Party
won a landslide victory. Singapore became an internally
self-governing state within the Commonwealth andLee Kuan
Yew became the country's first Prime
Minister.
[22]
Governor Sir William Allmond Codrington
Goode served as the first Yang di-Pertuan Negara (Head of
State), and was succeeded by Yusof bin Ishak, who became
the first President of Singapore in 1965.
[23]
During the
1950s, Chinese Communists with strong ties to the trade
unions and Chinese schools carried out an armed uprising
against the government, leading to the Malayan
Emergency and later, the Communist Insurgency War.
The 1954 National Service Riots, Chinese middle schools
riots, andHock Lee bus riots in Singapore were all linked to
these events.
[24]
On 31 August 1963, Singapore declared independence from
the United Kingdom, and joined with the Federation of
Malaya, the Crown Colony of Sarawak and Crown Colony of
North Borneo to form the new Federation of Malaysia as the
result of the1962 Merger Referendum. Singaporean leaders
chose to join Malaysia primarily due to concerns regarding
their limited land size and scarcity of land, water, markets
and natural resources. They also were hoping to enlist the
help of the Malaysian government to combat the internal
Communist threat.
However, the two years that Singapore spent as part of
Malaysia were filled with strife and bitter disagreements.
The Malaysians insisted on a pro-Bumiputera (Malay for
indigenous) society, where indigenous Malays and tribes
were given special rights. The Malaysians were also
suspicious of Singapore's ethnic Chinese population, and
worried that Singapore's economic clout would shift the
centre of power from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. There
were also linguistic and religious issues. The Singaporeans,
on the other hand, wanted an equal and meritocratic
society, a Malaysian Malaysia where all citizens were given
equal rights without regard to indigenous or tribal affiliation
or ancestry.
The Malaysian parliament blocked many progressive bills,
bringing Singapore's economic and social development to a
halt.Race riots broke out in Singapore in 1964. After
much heated ideological conflicts between the two
governments, in 1965, the Malaysian parliament voted 126
to 0 to expel Singapore from Malaysia (the Singaporean
delegates were not present and did not
vote).
[3][25][26]
Singapore gained independence as the
Republic of Singapore (remaining within the
Commonwealth) on 9 August 1965,
[3]
with Yusof bin Ishak
as President and Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister.
Everyone who was living in Singapore on the date of
independence was offered Singapore citizenship. Race
riots broke out once more in 1969. In 1967, the country co-
founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
[27]
and
in 1970 it joined the Non-Aligned Movement.
In 1990, Goh Chok Tong succeeded Lee as Prime Minister.
During his tenure, the country faced the 1997 Asian financial
crisis, the 2003 SARS outbreak and terrorist threats posed
by Jemaah Islamiyah. In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest
son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the country's third Prime
Minister.
[28]
Tony Tan
Tony Tan Keng Yam (simplified
Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ;pinyin: Chn
Qngyn; Peh-e-j: Tn Khng-im; born 7 February 1940)
is the seventh President of Singapore, in office since 2011.
He served as a Member of the Singapore Parliament from
1979 to 2006 and held various ministerial portfolios,
including defence, finance, education, trade and industry. In
the late 1980s, Lee Kuan Yew mentioned Tan as his first
choice to succeed himself as Prime Minister of Singapore,
but he declined.
[1]
He left the Cabinet from 1991 to 1995 to
lead the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation before
returning as Deputy Prime Minister, a position he held until
2005.
After stepping down as a Member of Parliament in 2006,
Tan was appointed Executive Director and Deputy
Chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment
Corporation (GIC) and Chairman of Singapore Press
Holdings Limited (SPH). He also served as Chairman of
Singapore's National Research Foundation, and Deputy
Chairman of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise
Council.
[2]
In July 2011, he resigned from these positions to
contest in the 2011 presidential election. He received
35.20% of the votes, winning by a 0.34% margin over the
second-placed candidate. Tan was sworn in as President on
1 September 2011.
[3]
The Merlion (Malay: Singa-Laut) is a marketing icon with
the head of a lion and the body of a fish, used as a mascot
and national personification of Singapore. Its name
combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion". The fish body
represents Singapore's origin as a fishing village when it
was called Temasek, which means "sea town" inJavanese.
The lion head represents Singapore's original name
Singapura meaning "lion city" or "kota singa".
The symbol was designed by Alec Fraser-Brunner, a
member of the Souvenir Committee and curator of the Van
Kleef Aquarium, for the logo of the Singapore Tourism
Board (STB) in use from 26 March 1964 to 1997
[1]
and has
been itstrademarked symbol since 20 July 1966. Although
the STB changed their logo in 1997, the STB Act continues
to protect the Merlion symbol.
[2]
Approval must be received
from STB before it can be used. The Merlion appears
frequently on STB-approved souvenirs.
The merlion a statue with the body of a fish and the head
of a lion occurs in a number of different artistic traditions.
Lions with fishtails can be found on Indian murals
at Ajanta and Mathura, and on Etruscan coins of the
Hellenistic period. Merlions, or heraldic sea-lions, are an
established element of Western heraldry, and have been
used on the coat of arms of the cities of
Portsmouth and Great Yarmouth in the United Kingdom; the
City of Manila; and the East India Company.
If you havent seen the Merlion, you havent fully seen Singapore.
An imaginary creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish,
the Merlion is the most important trademark, and symbol of the
country.
The original statue at the Merlion Park measures 8.6 metres high
and weighs 70 tonnes, and is one of Singapores most well-known
icons. The lion head represents the lion spotted by Prince Sang Nila
Utama when he re-discovered Singapura in 11 AD, as recorded in
the "Malay Annals", and the fish tail of the Merlion symbolises the
ancient city of Temasek (meaning sea in Javanese) by which
Singapore was known before the Prince named it Singapura
(meaning lion city in Sanskrit).
The Merlion is representative of Singapores humble beginnings as
a fishing village, and is a national icon that you must visit on your
trip here. Dont forget to capture a view of the seafront and the
Merlion set against the backdrop of skyscrapers in Singapores
Central Business District while youre here.
The Merlion can also be found at Sentosa.
