Where to Stay in Singapore

What is Singapore known for?

The deep-water anchorage off the Malay Peninsula drew a British trading post in 1819, and the harbour grew into one of the world's busiest ports while the island remade itself as a planned Garden City. Marina Bay is the showpiece. Gardens by the Bay, the Singapore Flyer, and Merlion Park ring the waterfront, and the shophouses of Chinatown and Little India hold the older trading town together.

What are the main landmarks in Singapore?

The waterfront carries the headline sights. Gardens by the Bay grows its Supertrees beside the Marina Barrage, the Merlion spouts across the water from Merlion Park, and the Singapore Flyer turns above the bay. The museums cluster inland.

The National Gallery Singapore fills the former Supreme Court and City Hall, while the Asian Civilisations Museum, the Peranakan Museum, and the National Museum of Singapore trace the island's trading past.

What is the history of Singapore?

Singapore began as a port. A British trading post took root on the island in 1819, drawn by the sheltered water at the mouth of the Singapore River, and the settlement grew into the busiest harbour on the route between India and China. Fort Canning Hill held the early garrison and the first botanical garden.

Free trade pulled in Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and Arab merchants. Their quarters, Chinatown, Little India, and Kampong Glam around the Masjid Sultan, still map the old divisions of the colonial town, and the shophouses that line them survive as heritage streets. War broke the colonial calm.

Japanese forces took the island in 1942, and the occupation left a scar that long outlasted the return of British rule. Singapore joined the new federation of Malaysia, then left it within two years, and became an independent republic in 1965. From a low-rise trading port it built the towers of Marina Bay, the reservoir behind the Marina Barrage, and the planned greenery that earned it the name Garden City.

The story is told in full at the National Museum of Singapore. The Merlion, half lion and half fish, became the emblem of that remade island.

Where is Singapore?

Singapore is small and low. The main island sits off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, joined to the State of Johor by a causeway across the Straits of Johor, with more than sixty smaller islands scattered around it. The Strait of Malacca runs to the west and the Singapore Strait to the south, two of the busiest shipping lanes anywhere.

Reclaimed land has pushed the shoreline out at Marina Bay, where a barrage holds back a freshwater reservoir in the heart of the city.

What is the climate of Singapore?

Singapore sits almost on the equator, and its weather barely changes through the year. Days are hot and humid, broken most afternoons by heavy thunderstorms that roll in off the Strait of Malacca. Two monsoons set the rhythm.

The northeast monsoon brings the wettest months around the turn of the year, while the southwest monsoon carries hazier, drier spells through the middle of the year. Rain is never far. The greenery of the Garden City, from the roadside rain trees to Gardens by the Bay, runs on that constant warmth and wet.

How do you get to Singapore?

Most arrivals land at Changi. The airport on the island's east is one of the busiest in Asia, linked to the centre by a fast train line and expressway. From Malaysia, two road crossings span the Straits of Johor, the old Causeway to Johor Bahru and the Second Link to the west.

Once in the city, the Mass Rapid Transit reaches almost everything. Trains run under Orchard Road, Chinatown, and Little India, and the bay sights sit a short walk apart.