What Was Chinatown Before Chinatown? | Telok Ayer, Kreta Ayer, Migrant Quarters and the Streets Before the Heritage District

SINGAPORE / ESTATE HISTORY / CHINATOWN

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By The Memory desk · Historical reference · Sources checked 7 October 2026

Before Chinatown was a conserved heritage district, it was the Chinese Campong of the Jackson Plan, the area south-west of the Singapore River that Stamford Raffles set aside for Chinese settlers in 1822. Its first streets ran along Telok Ayer Bay, then the waterfront, where junks unloaded migrants and a Hokkien shrine to the sea goddess Mazu stood from 1819. Inland lay Kreta Ayer, named after the bullock carts that hauled well water through the streets.

The Chinatown history that follows is the land-and-settlement story: how a planned quarter of a few thousand people in 1824 became one of the most crowded districts in Singapore, and how it was cleared, rehoused and finally conserved in 1989. Shopping has its own pages. For the markets, emporiums and festive bazaars, read our history of Chinatown retail, and for the 1970s mall on Eu Tong Sen Street, our history of People’s Park Complex.

Chinatown at a glance

Location	South-west of the Singapore River, in what is now the Outram planning area
Planned as	The Chinese Campong in Raffles’s town plan, drawn up by Lieutenant Philip Jackson in 1822–1823 and published in 1828
Local names	Telok Ayer (“water bay”) and Kreta Ayer (“water cart”) in Malay; Niu Che Shui in Mandarin, Gu Chia Chwi in Hokkien and Ngau Che Shui in Cantonese, all meaning bullock water cart
Early landmarks	Fuk Tak Chi (dated to 1820 by the National Library), Sri Mariamman Temple (1827, rebuilt 1843), Thian Hock Keng (early 1840s)
Conserved	7 July 1989, as four areas: Telok Ayer, Kreta Ayer, Bukit Pasoh and Tanjong Pagar
Today	A conservation district of shophouses, temples, mosques and hawker centres, served by Chinatown, Telok Ayer and Outram Park MRT stations

1822: the Jackson Plan and the Chinese Campong

Chinese settlers were on the island before the British arrived, but in small numbers. What turned the south bank of the river into a Chinese town was a planning decision. On 4 November 1822 Raffles issued instructions to a Town Committee, chaired by Captain C. E. Davis with George Bonham and the merchant Alexander Laurie Johnston, to divide the growing settlement into quarters. The engineer and surveyor Lieutenant Philip Jackson drew the layout, and the plan was published as an engraving in 1828, which is why it is known as the Jackson Plan.

The plan placed Europeans east of the government cantonment, the Sultan and the Bugis and Arab traders at Kampong Glam, and the Chinese on the far side of the river, between the river mouth and Telok Ayer Bay. A Chulia, or South Indian, quarter sat upriver beside it. The plan also asked for continuous covered walkways in front of each building, the origin of the five-foot way that still lines Chinatown’s streets.

Settlers arrived faster than any plan could absorb. The Urban Redevelopment Authority puts the Chinese population south of the river at about a thousand in 1821. By 1824 there were 3,317 Chinese settlers, almost a third of Singapore’s population, and by 1836 more than 13,700 Chinese were living in the district, making it the largest in the town.

Telok Ayer: the waterfront where migrants landed

Telok Ayer means “water bay” in Malay, and for the first sixty years of the settlement Telok Ayer Street was the shore. Boats landed passengers and cargo on the beach, and the temples that rose along the street stood a few steps from the water that had brought their builders. The Hokkien community set up a shrine to Mazu, goddess of the sea, in 1819; it grew into Thian Hock Keng, completed in the early 1840s, and the National Library dates its founding to 1841 in one article and 1842 in another.

The street was never only Chinese. In 1827 the merchant Naraina Pillai founded the Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road as a timber and attap shrine; it was rebuilt in brick in 1843, served new arrivals as a first refuge and an early registry of Hindu marriages, and became a national monument on 28 June 1973. Along Telok Ayer Street, South Indian Muslims built the Al-Abrar Mosque and the Nagore Dargah, both now national monuments, and the Hakka and Cantonese communities built the small Fuk Tak Chi temple.

Then the sea moved. The reclamation of Telok Ayer Bay in 1887 created the land on which Cecil Street and Robinson Road now stand, and the reclamation of Telok Ayer Basin in the early 1900s created the ground that later became Shenton Way. Telok Ayer Street ended up four streets from the waterfront. The temples that once stood near the anchorage are now surrounded by office towers, and their line along Telok Ayer Street is still the best guide to where the old coast ran.

Why is Chinatown called Niu Che Shui?

Inland from Telok Ayer, the streets around today’s Smith Street, Temple Street and Kreta Ayer Road had no piped water. Water was drawn from wells and carried through the streets in bullock carts. The Malay name Kreta Ayer means “water cart”, and the Chinese names for the whole district translate the same idea: Gu Chia Chwi in Hokkien, Ngau Che Shui in Cantonese and Niu Che Shui in Mandarin.

Kreta Ayer developed in the 1830s and became associated with the Cantonese community, while Telok Ayer remained more Hokkien. Piped supply eventually replaced the carts; the Pearl’s Hill Reservoir, completed in 1904 on the hill just to the west, became the district’s main source of fresh water, and its story is part of our history of Outram, Pearl’s Hill and Sepoy Lines. The name stayed long after the carts had gone, and it is still how many Chinese-speaking Singaporeans refer to Chinatown.

1830s to 1900: coolies, clans and secret societies

Through the 19th century the district absorbed one wave of migrants after another, most of them men from southern China. In 1830 nearly 7,000 Chinese labourers arrived in a single junk season, and by the 1870s, according to the National Library’s BiblioAsia, about 50,000 coolies were arriving every year. Many came on credit and spent their first months working off the cost of their passage.

They lived where the work was. In 1901 Pagoda Street alone had twelve licensed coolie lodging houses, each licensed for 200 people and often holding more, and shophouse upper floors were partitioned into cubicles a few feet wide shared by several men. Clan associations, dialect groups and temples provided welfare, burial and introductions to work; so, less benignly, did secret societies, which ran gambling, prostitution and protection. The Ghee Hin and Ghee Hok fought in the streets in 1846, and the Hokkien–Teochew riots of May 1854 left about 500 people dead.

The colonial state moved slowly from tolerating these networks to policing them. The Chinese Protectorate was set up in 1877 under William Pickering to supervise immigration and the societies, and the Societies Ordinance of 1889 outlawed the triads. Licensed opium shops multiplied over the same decades, from 45 in 1848 to about 550 by 1900, and brothels and gambling dens grew with them.

1886 to 1965: trams, fire, war and overcrowding

In 1886 steam trams began running along South Bridge Road, and by 1900 the original Chinese Campong had spread south to Bukit Pasoh and Tanjong Pagar; by then Singapore’s Chinese population had reached about 164,000, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority. The shophouses could not keep pace, and crowding made fire a constant danger. On 6 June 1917, in what the National Library calls the worst fire in Chinatown’s history, ten people died jumping from burning buildings.

The Japanese invasion added air raids to the hazards. In 1942 the crowded tenements became, in the National Library’s words, “death traps” during the air raids, and the Occupation that followed brought three and a half years of hardship. After the war the crowding returned, and by then the cubicles held families as well as single men.

How bad was it? This is our summary rather than a single documented figure: the post-war accounts we have read describe the district as among the most crowded places in Singapore, and clearing conditions of this kind was a central aim of the Housing and Development Board, set up in 1960.

Mid-1960s to 1989: renewal, rehousing and the conservation of Chinatown

In the mid-1960s urban-renewal schemes began, and Chinatown’s residents were rehoused in resettlement and public-housing estates. Large sites around the district were cleared for new blocks, among them the Outram Park flats, opened in 1970 on the old prison site. The People’s Park Market was destroyed by fire on 24 December 1966, and the area was redeveloped in the years that followed.

Opinion then turned towards keeping what was left. On 7 July 1989 about 1,200 buildings in Chinatown were given conservation status, as four conservation areas: Telok Ayer, Kreta Ayer, Bukit Pasoh and Tanjong Pagar. According to the Chinatown precinct’s own website, Tanjong Pagar had already been the first area restored under the government’s conservation plan in the mid-1980s; that story is in our history of what Tanjong Pagar was before Tanjong Pagar. In 2002 the Chinatown Heritage Centre opened in restored shophouses, telling the story of the people who had lived in them.

Conservation saved the buildings but not the population that had made them crowded. That is the main gap between the Chinatown visitors see and the one that existed before 1965, and it is worth keeping in mind on Pagoda Street, where twelve licensed lodging houses once stood.

Seeing the older Chinatown today

As of October 2026 the easiest way to read the old district is on foot. Walk Telok Ayer Street from Thian Hock Keng towards the Al-Abrar Mosque and the Nagore Dargah, and the line of temples marks the 19th-century shore; Cecil Street and Robinson Road, one block east, are on reclaimed land. Ann Siang Hill and Club Street, built up in the 1890s, show the later spread of the town up the slopes.

Chinatown MRT station has served the district since the North East Line opened in June 2003, and Telok Ayer station on the Downtown Line serves the old waterfront. For the streets west of New Bridge Road, continue to Outram before Outram and the 1930s estate of Tiong Bahru.

A Chinatown history timeline

• Before 1819: A small Chinese population is already living on the island.
• 1819: Hokkien settlers set up a shrine to Mazu on the Telok Ayer shore.
• 4 November 1822: Raffles instructs the Town Committee; Lieutenant Philip Jackson draws the town plan.
• 1824: 3,317 Chinese settlers, almost a third of the population.
• 1827: Naraina Pillai founds the Sri Mariamman Temple; it is rebuilt in brick in 1843.
• 1828: The Jackson Plan is published.
• 1836: More than 13,700 Chinese live in the district.
• Early 1840s: Thian Hock Keng is completed on Telok Ayer Street.
• May 1854: Hokkien–Teochew riots leave about 500 dead.
• 1877: The Chinese Protectorate is set up.
• 1886: Steam trams begin running along South Bridge Road.
• 1887: Telok Ayer Bay is reclaimed; Telok Ayer Basin follows in the early 1900s.
• 1889: The Societies Ordinance outlaws secret societies.
• 6 June 1917: The worst fire in Chinatown’s history.
• 1942 to 1945: Air raids and Japanese Occupation.
• Mid-1960s: Urban renewal begins and residents are rehoused.
• 24 December 1966: People’s Park Market is destroyed by fire.
• 7 July 1989: About 1,200 Chinatown buildings are given conservation status.
• 2002: The Chinatown Heritage Centre opens.
• June 2003: Chinatown MRT station opens on the North East Line.

Questions people ask

Why is Chinatown called Niu Che Shui?

Niu Che Shui, Mandarin for “bullock water cart”, refers to the carts that carried well water through the streets of Kreta Ayer in the 19th century. The Malay name Kreta Ayer means the same thing.

What does Telok Ayer mean?

It is Malay for “water bay”. Telok Ayer Street was the waterfront until the bay was reclaimed in 1887 and the basin in the early 1900s, which moved the shore four streets away.

Who planned Singapore’s Chinatown?

Stamford Raffles allocated the area to Chinese settlers in 1822. Lieutenant Philip Jackson drew the town plan for the Town Committee, and it was published in 1828 as the Jackson Plan.

What is the oldest temple in Chinatown?

Several have early dates. The National Library dates Fuk Tak Chi to 1820, Thian Hock Keng grew from a Mazu shrine set up in 1819, and the Sri Mariamman Temple, founded in 1827, is generally described as Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple.

When was Chinatown conserved?

On 7 July 1989, when about 1,200 buildings in four areas, Telok Ayer, Kreta Ayer, Bukit Pasoh and Tanjong Pagar, were given conservation status.

Sources and further reading

• National Library Board, Infopedia: Chinatown
• National Library Board, Infopedia: Telok Ayer Street
• National Library Board, Infopedia: Sri Mariamman Temple
• Lim Tin Seng, “Triads, Coolies and Pimps: Chinatown in Former Times”, BiblioAsia (2015)
• Urban Redevelopment Authority: Chinatown – Kreta Ayer Conservation Area
• Urban Redevelopment Authority: Chinatown – Telok Ayer Conservation Area
• National Heritage Board, Roots: Becoming a cosmopolitan port city
• Wikipedia: Jackson Plan (for the Town Committee members and publication date)

This is a historical reference; dates follow the sources listed, and where they disagree we say so. Read next: Chinatown’s retail history · Tanjong Pagar before the CBD · Back to The Memory