We present the cities

SINGAPORE

Singapore is a small island in South-East Asia, with less then 6 millions of the inhabitants. Chinese of various groups (75%), Malesians (14%), Indians (8%) and others (Indonesians, Filipinoes, Vietnamese, Thais, Europeans, Arabs, etc.) prevail. The island was in the ownership of the johoric Sultan until 1891, when it was sold to an Englishman Standorf Raffles, who determined that Singapore would become the Asian centre of his business plans with the Eastern-Indian company. Soon, the first banks and the insurance companies appeared, attracting numerous business people and adventure ones in this part of the globe. With this, thousand of Chinese, Malesian and Indian workers came and in small boats landed in the region of Boat Quay where is the business centre of Singapore.

By the end of the 19th century, at the hilly spots of the river, there were low small houses, in which the fishermen lived, while the constructiong of the first banks (houses on water) came later. With modern development from 1970 and furter on, those small houses were demolsihed, so the tall buildings were built, in which, rooms were given to a large world corporations. There remained only one row of the former fishermen’s small huts which stayed as a tourist attraction. Today, there are more or less restaurants. Singapore has a high economic standard and is ranked among six Asian economic tigers. The annual GDP profit for each inhabitant is 49.754 USD, while the reserves of this country reached 200 billion USD. Stable political situation, excellent economy, high security, the abundance of good food etc, attracts thousand of migrants from Asia and other parts of the world, which make Singapore multi-cultural country. This is the promissed land for many people from other Asian states.

It is interesting how Singapore got its name. The word Singapore, in fact, means „the lion’s city“ or „the city of lion“. When one princ from the neighbouring Indonesia in the 15th century was on the island, saw a tiger, but he thought that it was lion and so the island got the name Singapore - the city of lion. Because of confusion that happened, the Singapore government decided that within their coat of arm, the picture of lion and tiger would be put.

The rest of the article you can read in the magazine.