Singapore History
Deep histories of Singapore estates, neighbourhoods, coastlines and the places that existed before the city took its present form.
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What Was Tuas Before Tuas? | Kampongs, Mangroves and Sea Before Singapore Manufactured the Industrial West
Before Tuas became Singapore’s extreme-west industrial and port landscape, it was a rural coast of kampongs, fishing, mangroves and sea. Its modern history is…
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What Was Joo Koon Before Joo Koon? | Rural Jurong, Factories and the Industrial West Before the MRT Station
Before Joo Koon became an MRT and industrial transport node, it belonged to rural western Singapore and the expanding Jurong factory landscape that eventually…
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What Was Pioneer Before Pioneer? | Farms, Factories and the Western Frontier Before the MRT Station
Before Pioneer became an MRT station and western residential-industrial gateway, it was part of rural Jurong and then the expanding factory landscape that pushed…
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What Was Boon Lay Before Boon Lay? | Plantations, Kampongs and the Rural West Before the MRT Gateway
Before Boon Lay became a major MRT and bus gateway to Jurong, NTU, Pioneer and Tuas, it was part of Singapore’s rural western landscape…
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What Was Jurong Before Jurong? | Swamps, Plantations and Kampongs Before Singapore’s Industrial West
Before Jurong became Singapore’s industrial west, regional centre and lake district, it was a landscape of mangroves, swamps, plantations, farms, fishing and kampongs. A…
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What Was Clementi Before Clementi? | Kampongs, Plantations and the Western Roads Before the HDB New Town
Before Clementi became a mature HDB new town, MRT hub and education corridor, the western landscape held kampongs, plantations, farms, tracks and military-industrial routes…
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What Was Pasir Panjang Before Pasir Panjang? | Long Beach, Kampongs, Opium Hill and the Coast Before the Container Port
Pasir Panjang, the “long beach”, had a road by 1850, a fort from 1878 and an opium factory from 1910 before the 1942 battle…
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What Was Telok Blangah Before Telok Blangah? | Malay Settlements, Keppel Harbour and the Coast Before the HDB Estate
Telok Blangah was the Temenggong’s seat from 1823, beside the hill renamed Mount Faber in 1845 and the deep channel that became Keppel Harbour.
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What Was Tanjong Pagar Before Tanjong Pagar? | Coastline, Docks, Rickshaws and the Port District Before the CBD
Tanjong Pagar, the “cape of stakes”, grew from a fishing village into Singapore’s docks from 1864, with a rickshaw station, a 1932 railway terminus…
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What Was Chinatown Before Chinatown? | Telok Ayer, Kreta Ayer, Migrant Quarters and the Streets Before the Heritage District
Chinatown began as the Chinese Campong of the 1822 Jackson Plan, grew from Telok Ayer’s shore and Kreta Ayer’s water carts, and was conserved…
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What Was Outram Before Outram? | Pearl’s Hill, Cemeteries, Prison and the Institutional Fringe Before the MRT Interchange
Outram began as Sepoy Lines, a sepoy cantonment from 1827, then held Pearl’s Hill Prison, the General Hospital and the Outram Park flats before…
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What Was Tiong Bahru Before Tiong Bahru? | Cemeteries, Kampongs and the Low-Lying Land Before Singapore’s Art Deco Estate
Tiong Bahru means “new cemetery”. The swampy burial land was bought in 1926, the SIT finished its first Art Deco block in 1936, and…
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What Was Redhill Before Redhill? | Bukit Merah, the Swordfish Legend, Kampongs and the Hill Before the Housing Estate
Redhill, or Bukit Merah, was named after its red laterite soil. Gambier, brick kilns and burial hills came first; the SIT built Redhill Close…
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What Was Alexandra Before Alexandra? | Plantations, Brickworks, Railways and the Military Corridor Before the Modern City
Before the offices and showrooms, Alexandra Road was military land: Indian barracks from about 1908, a military hospital opened in 1940, and SIT rental…
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What Was Queenstown Before Queenstown? | Boh Beh Kang, Farms, Cemeteries and the Villages Before Singapore’s First Satellite Town
Before Queenstown, the land held Boh Beh Kang village, farms, burial hills and Buller Camp. The SIT began Singapore’s first satellite town in 1952…
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What Was Buona Vista Before Buona Vista? | Kampongs, Military Land, Queenstown and the Ridge Before One-North
Before the MRT interchange, Buona Vista was hilly roads with a 1930s coastal gun battery, a 1934 kampong mosque, Gurkha barracks and burial hills,…
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What Was Holland Village Before Holland Village? | Plantations, Military Families, Chip Bee Gardens and the Market Before the Lifestyle Enclave
Before the cafés, Holland Village was Hakka burial hills, rubber estates and a 1946 market, named by the Rural Board in 1929 and reshaped…
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What Was Tanglin Before Tanglin? | Plantations, Country Houses, Barracks and the Estates Before the Diplomatic District
Tanglin was gambier and nutmeg land before the Botanic Gardens (1859), Tanglin Barracks (1860), clubs and colonial bungalows made way for embassies.
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What Was Orchard Road Before Orchard Road? | Nutmeg Plantations, Cemeteries, Bungalows and the Road Before the Shopping Belt
Before the shops, Orchard Road ran through nutmeg estates, Chinese, Jewish and Malay cemeteries and a suburb of bungalows and Peranakan terraces.
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What Was Newton Before Newton? | Nutmeg Plantations, Syed Ali Road, the Railway and the Eight-Road Circus Before the City Neighbourhood
Newton was nutmeg land, then a railway stop from 1903 to 1932; Newton Circus was built on the station grounds in 1933 and the…
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What Was Novena Before Novena? | Hospitals, a Jewish Cemetery, Kampong Chia Heng and the Church That Named the District
Novena takes its name from the novena devotions begun in 1949 at the Church of St Alphonsus; before that it was Thomson Road, Teochew…
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What Was Balestier Before Balestier? | Sugar Plantations, Villas, Film Studios and the Road Before the City Fringe
Balestier was Joseph Balestier’s sugar plantation from 1835 to 1848, then villages, villas, Singapore’s first public housing estate and a film studio.
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What Was Toa Payoh Before Toa Payoh? | Swamps, Kampongs, Squatters and the HDB Model Town
Toa Payoh was swamp, gambier estates and kampongs before HDB cleared it in the early 1960s and balloted the first flats of its first…
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What Was Bishan Before Bishan? | Peck San Theng, Kampong San Teng and the Cemetery Before the New Town
Before the HDB town, Bishan was Peck San Theng, a Cantonese cemetery founded in 1870, with the village of Kampong San Teng beside it.…
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What Was Ang Mo Kio Before Ang Mo Kio? | Kow Tiow Kio, Cheng San, Rubber Estates and the Bridges Before the New Town
Before the HDB town, Ang Mo Kio was gambier and rubber land with villages such as Kow Tiow Kio and Cheng San. A dated…
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What Was Serangoon Before Serangoon? | Rubber Estates, Chia Keng, Serangoon Gardens and the Road Before the New Town
Serangoon began as an 1828 road across the island, then became rubber country, a 1950s garden suburb and an HDB town. A dated history…
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What Was Hougang Before Hougang? | Aukang, Teochew Villages, Markets, Wells and Upper Serangoon Before the New Town
Before the HDB town, Hougang was Au Kang, a Teochew-majority stretch of Upper Serangoon Road with churches, temples, a mosque and markets. A dated…
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What Was Sengkang Before Sengkang? | Kangkar, Fish Auctions, Plantations and the Rivers Before the New Town
Before the new town, Sengkang was Kangkar, a riverside fishing village with a wholesale fish market. A dated history from the plantations to the…
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What Was Punggol Before Punggol? | Kampongs, Farms, Seafood and the Coast Before the New Town
Punggol was a Malay coastal kampong, a weekend coast and a pig-farming zone before the new town. A dated history from the 1840s to…
