Geography | |
---|---|
Location | Southeast Asia |
Archipelago | Malay Archipelago |
Adjacent to | Singapore Strait South China Sea Straits of Malacca Straits of Johor |
Area | 730 km2 (280 sq mi) |
Highest point | Bukit Timah Hill — 163.63 metres (536.8 ft) |
Administration | |
Demographics | |
Population | 5,917,600 [2] (2023) |
Pop. density | 7,804/km2 (20212/sq mi) |
Ethnic groups | Chinese Malay Indian Eurasian |
Singapore Island, also known as mainland Singapore, is the main constituent island of the sovereign island country and city-state of the Republic of Singapore. It is located at the southern tip of Malay Peninsula, in-between the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. The Singapore Strait lies to the south, while the Johor Strait lies to the north.
The island forms the bulk of the country in terms of area, population and prominence, since areas situated on the country's smaller islands consist of military or industrial areas, with the exceptions being Sentosa and Ubin Island. [3] As of 2023, Singapore's population stood close to six million and the mainland has a land area of approximately 730 square kilometres (280 sq mi). [2]
Temasek was the early recorded name of a settlement on the site of today's Singapore, although the island itself wasn't specifically defined. Meanwhile, Pulau Ujong was one of the earliest references to Singapore Island. The 3rd-century Chinese reference to Pú Luó Zhōng (Chinese : 蒲 羅 中 ), corresponds to the local reference known as Pulau Ujong (Malay for "Island at the End"). [4]
Travellers and merchants from around Asia arriving at the Singapore Strait to the South China Sea would have to pass by the island, hence the name Pulau Ujong. Similarly, Orang Laut tribes at the time referred to Singapore as the "End Island". Ujong Tanah ("Land at the Furthest") or its variants were also used in European sources as a name for Singapore. [5]
The Kristang name for the island, Pedra Draku ("Rock of Dragons" or "Dragonsrock"), comes from the Dragon's Tail Peninsula found in older maps of the world, identified as the former sub-continent of Sundaland that the island of Singapore now sits on top of. [1] The name Pedra Draku thus also has supposed parallels with the Dragon's Teeth Gate or Long Ya Men (Chinese :龍牙門) that once stood at the front of Keppel Harbour, and also with the Malay name Pulau Ujong, identifying Singapore as the island at the end of the Dragon's Tail Peninsula. [1]
According to the mythical third-century book Record of Foreign countries during the Eastern Wu Period (呉時外國傳), the island was inhabited by cannibals with five- to six-inch tails which may had racial connotations and skepticism. [6]
On a straight line, the island measures approximately 55 kilometres (34 mi) from east to west and 28 kilometres (17 mi) from north to south – with 201 kilometres (125 mi) of coastline. [7] The highest point of Singapore is Bukit Timah Hill, with a height of 163.63m (536.8ft) and made up of igneous rock, granite. Hills and valleys of sedimentary rock dominate the northwest, while the eastern region consists of sandy and flatter land.
Since 1822, there were land reclamation works by the British, who at that time controlled the island as a colony. Since independence, the contemporary government of Singapore has continued to increase the size of the island, having increased the area of the main island from 580 km2 (224 sq mi) in the 1960s to 710 km2 (274 sq mi) today. [8] A further 200 km2 (77 sq mi) of land is also expected to be added to the main island. [9]
The northernmost end of the island is Sembawang. The westernmost and southernmost points are at Tuas. The easternmost point of the island is Changi Bay.
The geography of Malaysia includes both the physical and the human geography of Malaysia, a Southeast Asian country made up of two major landmasses separated by water—Peninsular Malaysia to the west and East Malaysia to the east—and numerous smaller islands that surround those landmasses. Peninsular Malaysia is on the southernmost part of the Malay Peninsula, south of Thailand, north of Singapore and east of the Indonesian island of Sumatra; East Malaysia comprises most of the northern part of Borneo, and shares land borders with Brunei to the north and Indonesian Borneo to the south.
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 800 kilometres (500 mi) long and from 65 to 250 km wide, between the Malay Peninsula to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connecting the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea. As the main shipping channel between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.
Jurong is a major geographical region located at the south-westernmost point of the West Region of Singapore. Although mostly vaguely defined, the region's extent roughly covers the planning areas of Jurong East, Jurong West, Boon Lay, and Pioneer, along with Jurong Island in the Western Islands cluster and the southernmost portions of the Western Water Catchment. Should it be described at its greatest historical extent, the region can also include present-day Bukit Batok and Tuas.
Pulau Ubin, also simply known as Ubin, is an island situated in the north east of Singapore, to the west of Pulau Tekong. The granite quarry used to be supported by a few thousand settlers on Pulau Ubin in the 1960s, but only about 40 villagers remained as of 2012. It is one of the last rural areas to be found in Singapore, with an abundance of natural flora and fauna. The island forms part of the Ubin–Khatib Important Bird Area (IBA), identified as such by BirdLife International because it supports significant numbers of visiting and resident birds, some of which are threatened. Today, the island is managed by the National Parks Board, compared to 12 agencies managing different areas of the island previously.
Singapore is a city-state and island country in maritime Southeast Asia, located at the end of the Malayan Peninsula between Malaysia and Indonesia as well as the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. It is heavily compact and urbanised. As of 2023, Singapore has a total land area of approximately 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi). Singapore is separated from Indonesia by the Singapore Strait and from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor.
Pedra Branca is an outlying island and the easternmost point of Singapore. The name of the island, which is Portuguese for "white rock", refers to whitish guano deposited on the rock. The island consists of a small outcrop of granite rocks with an area of about 8,560 square metres (92,100 sq ft) at low tide. During the low water spring tide it measures, at its longest, 137 metres (449 ft) and has an average width of 60 metres (200 ft). Pedra Branca is situated at 1°19′48″N104°24′27″E, where the Singapore Strait meets the South China Sea.
The Singapore Strait is a 113 km-long (70 mi), 19 km-wide (12 mi) strait between the Strait of Malacca in the west and the South China Sea in the east. Singapore is on the north of the channel, and the Indonesian Riau Islands are on the south. The two countries share a maritime border along the strait.
Pulau Bukom, also known as Pulau Bukum, is a small restricted-access island belonging to Singapore that is located about five kilometres to the south of Mainland Singapore, off the Straits of Singapore. The size of Pulau Bukom is about 1.45 km2 (0.56 sq mi).
Raffles Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on Pulau Satumu in the Singapore Strait, about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) south of the main island of Singapore.
The early history of Singapore refers to its pre-colonial era before 1819, when the British East India Company led by Stamford Raffles established a trading settlement on the island and set in motion the history of modern Singapore.
The North-Eastern Islands is a planning area and a group of islands located within the North-East Region of Singapore. The cluster is made up of three islands, namely Pulau Tekong, Pulau Tekong Kechil and Pulau Ubin. Pulau Tekong and Pulau Tekong Kechil was formerly home to 10 villages while Pulau Ubin was home to a number of granite quarries. At present, Pulau Tekong houses the Singapore Armed Forces Basic Military Training Centre while Pulau Ubin is one of the last areas in Singapore that has been preserved from urban development, concrete buildings and tarmac roads.
Serangoon Harbour is a harbour in Singapore located between the mainland island of Singapore and Pulau Ubin.
The Pulau Pisang Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on the highest point of Pulau Pisang, an island in the Strait of Malacca 15 kilometres from Pontian Kechil, Johor, Malaysia.
The Pedra Branca dispute was a territorial dispute between Singapore and Malaysia over several islets at the eastern entrance to the Singapore Strait, namely Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge. The dispute began in 1979 and was largely resolved by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2008, which opined that Pedra Branca belonged to Singapore and Middle Rocks belonged to Malaysia. Sovereignty over South Ledge belongs to the state in the territorial waters of which it is located.
The Middle Rocks are two uninhabited small rocks separated by 250 metres (820 ft) of open water at the eastern opening of the Strait of Singapore on the western edge of the South China Sea. The islands were disputed territory between Malaysia and Singapore until, on 23 May 2008, the International Court of Justice decided that sovereignty over Middle Rocks belonged to Malaysia by 15 votes to one.
The names of Singapore include the various historical appellations as well as contemporary names and nicknames in different languages used to describe the island, city or country of Singapore. A number of different names have been given to the settlement or the island of Singapore all through history, the earliest record may have been from the 2nd century AD. Possible mentions of Pulau Ujong, the name for the island of Singapore, may be found in Chinese works, and it was also referred to as Temasek in Malay and Javanese literature. Sometime in the 14th century the name was changed to Singapura, which is now rendered as Singapore in English. Singapura means "Lion City" in Sanskrit, and Sang Nila Utama is usually credited with naming the city, although its actual origin is uncertain.
Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya, also known as West Malaysia or the "Malaysian Peninsula", is the western part of Malaysia that comprises the southern part of the Malay Peninsula on Mainland Southeast Asia and the nearby islands. Its area totals approximately 132,490 km2 (51,150 sq mi), which is nearly 40% of the total area of the country; the other 60% is in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo.
Hsu Yun Tsiao was a scholar of Overseas Chinese and Southeast Asian history.
The German Girl Shrine is a shrine on the island of Pulau Ubin in Singapore. It marks the site of the burial of an unknown 18-year-old girl who died on the island in 1914 after falling from a cliff while fleeing from British forces who sought to detain a number of German nationals then resident on the island. Her body was recovered and interred in an urn on the site by Chinese workers, and a makeshift shrine structure was built. The site was visited frequently by gamblers who thought the spirit of the girl would bring them good luck. A permanent structure was erected in 1974 by a company carrying out quarrying on the island. Quarrying has since ceased, and the shrine is now within Ketam Mountain Bike Park. Visitors often leave offerings, including makeup and Barbie dolls, at the site.