Singapore

Singapore is an island city-state at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, across a narrow strait from Johor in Malaysia. Its name comes from the Malay Singapura, lion city, built from Sanskrit words, and the merlion, half lion and half fish, is its symbol. English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil all have official status.

A port called Temasek traded on the island in the 14th century, and Chinese and Javanese records of the time mention it. In 1819 Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company opened a trading post here with the agreement of the Johor court, and it grew into a free port on the sea route between India and China. It became part of the Straits Settlements and later a British Crown colony, drawing settlers from China, India and the Malay islands. After a brief union with Malaysia it became an independent republic in 1965, led by its first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew.

PSA International, which began as the Port of Singapore Authority, runs the container terminals of the city-state and ports in other countries. Creative Technology, founded in Singapore, designed the Sound Blaster sound cards for personal computers. Wilmar International trades and refines palm oil and sells cooking oils under brands such as Arawana in China.

Hawker centers, open-air food courts with rows of stalls, serve dishes such as Hainanese chicken rice, and UNESCO listed the hawker culture as intangible heritage. The Singapore Botanic Gardens, laid out in the 19th century, were the first tropical garden on the World Heritage List, and Henry Ridley ran his rubber trials there. At the Raffles Hotel the bartender Ngiam Tong Boon mixed the first Singapore Sling early in the 20th century. Marina Bay Sands joins its hotel towers with a park on the roof. Gardens by the Bay, beside it on reclaimed land, is known for its Supertrees, steel structures covered with ferns, vines and orchids.