Portal:Singapore

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

Welcome to the Singapore Portal

Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree of latitude (137 kilometres or 85 miles) north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bordering the Strait of Malacca to the west, the Singapore Strait to the south along with the Riau Islands in Indonesia, the South China Sea to the east, and the Straits of Johor along with the State of Johor in Malaysia to the north.

Singapore's history dates back at least eight hundred years, having been a maritime emporium known as Temasek and subsequently a major constituent part of several successive thalassocratic empires. Its contemporary era began in 1819, when Stamford Raffles established Singapore as an entrepôt trading post of the British Empire. In 1867, Singapore came under the direct control of Britain as part of the Straits Settlements. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by Japan in 1942 and returned to British control as a separate Crown colony following Japan's surrender in 1945. Singapore gained self-governance in 1959 and, in 1963, became part of the new federation of Malaysia, alongside Malaya, North Borneo, and Sarawak. Ideological differences led to Singapore's expulsion from the federation two years later; Singapore became an independent sovereign country in 1965. After early years of turbulence and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation rapidly developed to become one of the Four Asian Tigers.

As a highly developed country, it has one of the highest GDP per capita (PPP) in the world. It is also identified as a tax haven. Singapore is the only country in Asia with a AAA sovereign credit rating from all major rating agencies. It is a major aviation, financial, and maritime shipping hub and has consistently been ranked as one of the most expensive cities to live in for expatriates and foreign workers. Singapore ranks highly in key social indicators: education, healthcare, quality of life, personal safety, infrastructure, and housing, with a home-ownership rate of 88 percent. Singaporeans enjoy one of the longest life expectancies, fastest Internet connection speeds, lowest infant mortality rates, and lowest levels of corruption in the world. It has the third highest population density of any country in the world, although there are numerous green and recreational spaces as a result of urban planning. With a multicultural population and in recognition of the cultural identities of the major ethnic groups within the nation, Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. English is the common language, with exclusive use in numerous public services. Multi-racialism is enshrined in the constitution and continues to shape national policies in education, housing, and politics.

Singapore is a parliamentary republic in the Westminster tradition of unicameral parliamentary government, and its legal system is based on common law. While the country is de jure a multi-party democracy with free elections, the government under the People's Action Party (PAP) wields widespread control and political dominance. The PAP has governed the country continuously since full internal self-government was achieved in 1959, and holds a supermajority in Parliament. 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 is also a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the East Asia Summit, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Commonwealth of Nations. (Full article...)

More about Singapore...

View new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

The Supreme Court of Singapore. Before the High Court, which is the lower division of the Supreme Court, will judicially review the act or decision of a public authority, the applicant must satisfy various threshold issues.

Threshold issues are legal requirements in Singapore administrative law that must be satisfied by applicants before their claims for judicial review of acts or decisions of public authorities can be dealt with by the High Court. These include showing that they have standing (locus standi) to bring cases, and that the matters are amenable to judicial review and justiciable by the Court.

Depending on the interest that the applicant seeks to represent, standing can be categorized as either private or public standing. Applicants must establish they have private standing if they seek to represent personal interests. In contrast, applicants who seek to represent the interests of a larger group or the public at large must establish public or representative standing. Where private standing is concerned, the Singapore courts have not yet directly addressed the issue of the standing required to obtain a declaration in an administrative law case, but where constitutional claims are concerned the Court of Appeal held that three elements must exist: (1) the applicant must have a real interest in bringing the case, (2) there must be a real controversy between the parties to the case, and (3) a personal right possessed by the applicant must have been violated. The Court also suggested that the same test applied to applications for prerogative orders. The legal position on public standing in administrative law cases is indeterminate as, to date, no applicant has sought to rely on public standing to obtain leave for judicial review. In constitutional law cases, the Court has drawn a distinction between public and private rights, and held that people will not have standing to vindicate public rights unless they have suffered special damage and have genuine private interests to protect or further. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

edit

Selected picture

Credit: Socksiong (15 November 2007)

The new and old buildings of the Supreme Court of Singapore. The older building was constructed in the 1930s and is now the National Art Gallery of Singapore. The new supreme court building was constructed between 2002 and 2005. Read more...

More selected pictures

General images

The following are images from various Singapore-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Mass Rapid Transit (from History of Singapore)
Image 21888 German map of Singapore (from History of Singapore)
Image 3Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 4Enlargeable, detailed map of Singapore (from Geography of Singapore)
Image 5Restored shophouses running along a street in Chinatown, which reflects the Victorian architecture of buildings built in Singapore during the earlier colonial period, with styles such as the painted ladies. (from History of Singapore)
Image 6The Thian Hock Keng, completed in 1842, served as a place of worship for early immigrants. (from History of Singapore)
Image 7Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, led by a Japanese officer, marches under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on 15 February 1942. It was the largest surrender of British-led forces in history. (from History of Singapore)
Image 8The Supertree Grove at Gardens by the Bay (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 9A fragment of the Singapore Stone, inscribed with an Indic script, c. 10th to 13th century. (from History of Singapore)
Image 10Centre square of Raffles Place (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 11The country celebrates its National Day on 9 August each year. (from History of Singapore)
Image 12The Jurong Industrial Estate was developed in the 1960s to industrialise the economy. (from History of Singapore)
Image 13A statue of Raffles by Thomas Woolner now stands in Singapore, near Raffles's landing site in 1819. (from History of Singapore)
Image 14Baedeker map of the city and environs, c. 1914
Image 15Shophouses in Singapore (from Singaporeans)
Image 16The Plan of the Town of Singapore, or more commonly known as the Jackson Plan or Raffles Town Plan. (from History of Singapore)
Image 17Upper Seletar Reservoir (from Geography of Singapore)
Image 18Old Supreme Court of Singapore (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 19Japanese POWs are taken to work where they were made to clear up the city during the British reoccupation in September 1945
Image 20Jurong Industrial Estate, Singapore, with Jurong Island in the background (from Geography of Singapore)
Image 21The Marina Bay Sands integrated resort. Opened in 2010, it has become a key feature of Singapore's modern skyline. (from History of Singapore)
Image 22Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum (from Singaporeans)
Image 23The old and the new Singapore as seen from an alley behind Boat Quay (2023) (from History of Singapore)
Image 24Afternoon thunderstorms are a frequent occurrence in Singapore, which has an equatorial climate. (from Geography of Singapore)
Image 25Men of various ethnicities - Chinese, Malay, and Indian gather at a street corner in Singapore, circa 1900. (from Singaporeans)
Image 26Traffic in Singapore, 1981. Prior to the introduction of the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) in 1990, vehicles per capita in Singapore was the highest in ASEAN. (from History of Singapore)
Image 27Deepavali decorations in Singapore. (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 28Engraving of Sir Stamford Raffles by James Thomson
Image 29View of Bukit Batok Estate. Large scale public housing development has created high housing ownership among the population. (from History of Singapore)
Image 30A hawker centre in Lavender, Singapore (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 31Quadrilingual sign (from Singaporeans)
Image 32Chinese community in Singapore carrying the Flag of the Republic of China (written Long live the motherland) to celebrate the victory, also reflected the Chinese identity issues at that time. (from History of Singapore)
Image 33Fireworks over the Marina Bay skyline following the conclusion of the 2015 National Day Parade on 9 August 2015. (from History of Singapore)
Image 34Sign board with warnings in Singapore's four main languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil (from Culture of Singapore)
Image 351955 stamp with the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II (from History of Singapore)
Image 36Singapore's urban geography is often characterised by extensive use of HDB flats, which the majority of citizens reside in. (from Geography of Singapore)
Image 37Hainanese chicken rice (from Singaporeans)
Image 38St Andrew's Cathedral (from Singaporeans)
Image 39A busy Victoria Dock, Tanjong Pagar, in the 1890s. (from History of Singapore)
Image 40The Sultan Mosque, built in 1826 in the Kampong Glam district, is the oldest and one of the largest mosque in Singapore. (from Singaporeans)
Image 41The Mao Kun map from Wubei Zhi which is based on the early 15th century maps of Zheng He showing Temasek (淡馬錫) at the top left, and Long Ya Men (龍牙門) on the right panel. (from History of Singapore)

Selected biography - show another

The smaller of two pieces making up Han's Seeds (2006), at the National Museum of Singapore

Han Sai Por (Chinese: 韓少芙; born 19 July 1943) is a Singaporean sculptor. A graduate of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), East Ham College of Art, Wolverhampton College of Art (now the School of Art and Design of the University of Wolverhampton), and Lincoln University, New Zealand, she worked as a teacher and later as a part-time lecturer at NAFA, the LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, and the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, before becoming a full-time artist in 1997.

Han has participated in exhibitions locally and abroad, including events in China, Denmark, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Her first solo exhibition, entitled Four Dimensions, was held at the National Museum Art Gallery in 1993. Her sculptures can be found around the world, in Osaka and Shōdoshima, Kagawa Prefecture, in Japan; Kuala Lumpur and Sarawak in Malaysia; and Washington, D.C., in Singapore, sculptures commissioned from her can be seen at Capital Tower, the Defence Science Organisation National Laboratories, the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, the National Museum of Singapore, Revenue House, Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3, Suntec City Mall, and Woodlands Regional Library. In 2001, Han was the founding President of the Sculpture Society (Singapore) and remains its Honorary President. She was the first artist in residence at the Society's Sculpture Pavilion at Fort Canning Park in 2009, where she worked on sculptures made from the trunks of tembusu trees. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Ho Yuen Hoe Gan Eng Seng Hugh Hickling Zubir Said Tang Da Wu Edwin Thumboo Teresa Hsu Fandi Ahmad Denise Phua Li Jiawei Glenn Knight Laurentia Tan Tao Li Yip Pin Xiu Neila Sathyalingam Walter Woon Rex Shelley Feng Tianwei Lee Choon Seng Balaji Sadasivan Choor Singh Kelvin Tan Xiaxue

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Louis Vuitton helped to develop the visual arts programme for the School of the Arts, Singapore?
... that Singaporean former lawyer David Yong learned Korean and moved to South Korea to become a K-pop singer?
... that Chinese missionary Tan See Boo moved to Singapore to work for the Presbyterian Church, but later returned to China to persuade Christians to leave the Presbyterian Church?
... that Singapore's founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son Lee Hsien Loong donated the "unsolicited discounts" from their controversial purchase of condominium units to charity?
... that Harold Ingrams said that Yemeni philanthropist Sayyid Abubakr bin Shaikh Al-Kaff could be an embarrassment for wanting Hadhramaut to be ruled by the British like Singapore?
... that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions caused a 37-percent increase in infections of dengue fever in Singapore's 2020 outbreak?

edit

In this month

7 November 1987: The first section of Singapore's MRT system on the North South MRT Line opens.
22 November 1990: Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2 begins operation.
28 November 1990: Goh Chok Tong becomes the second Prime Minister of Singapore, marking the first handover of power since Singapore's independence.

More Anniversaries...

edit

More did you know - show different entries

... that the tiger in the Coat of arms of Singapore (pictured) represents Malaysia?

... that during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore the Kempeitai East District Branch was the site of interrogation and torture of many civilians and that later the building housed the YMCA?

... that Choa Chu Kang Community Library was the first library in Singapore to install self-check machines for borrowing and returning of books?

... that the late Singaporean Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Balaji Sadasivan became a neurosurgeon after seeing the effects of Minamata disease in Minamata, Japan, as a medical student?

... that 159 soldiers of the Malay Regiment fought against a 13,000-strong Japanese force to defend a hill position in Singapore’s Kent Ridge Park?

More...

edit

Selected panorama

Credit: Sengkeng (12 November 2006)

Sungei Serangoon (Malay for Serangoon River; Chinese: 实龙岗河) is a river in the north-eastern part of Singapore. The 6-kilometre river starts as a canal near Tampines Road, and flows through Hougang, Sengkang, Punggol, Lorong Halus and Pasir Ris, before emptying into the Serangoon Harbour. The river is also known as the Serangoon Estuary.

More selected panoramas • Read more...

edit

Singapore topics

edit

Related portals

Southeast Asia

Other Countries

edit

Tasks

Things you can do

Check for latest announcements and updates at the WikiProject Singapore
Make yourself known as a Singaporean Wikipedian
Create or improve on the articles listed in the to do list
Share with us your level of proficiency in Singlish by putting one of the 4 Singlish Babel tags (1 2 3 4) onto your user page
(More...)