Singapore

Singapore fits a whole country onto one small island off the tip of the Malay Peninsula, joined to the mainland across the narrow Johor Strait by a causeway built in the 1920s. The island is low and flat, rising only to Bukit Timah, where original rainforest survives inside the city. Reclamation has pushed the coastline outwards and stitched several islets into Jurong Island. Rain falls every month, yet with no big rivers the state stores it in reservoirs and recycles used water as NEWater.

A port called Temasek traded here in the fourteenth century; legend says a Sumatran prince renamed it Singapura, the Lion City, after glimpsing a strange beast on the shore. In 1819 Stamford Raffles secured a British trading post from the ruler of Johor. Japan held the island from February 1942 until 1945. Union with Malaysia in 1963 broke down, and Singapore became independent in August 1965 under Lee Kuan Yew, who built public housing and courted foreign factories.

Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian families share the same housing estates, and Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa and Deepavali are all public holidays. Hawker centres listed by UNESCO serve chicken rice, laksa and roti prata amid chatter in Singlish. The economy rests on a harbour where cargo changes ships between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, on refineries, on factories making chips and medicines, and on banks serving the region.