Impressive high-rise backdrop - wonderfully illuminated at night. best experienced either during a bum boat ride on the Singapore River or on foot from the promenade.
The Singapore River is a small river that weaves its way through the metropolitan area of Singapore and is of great historical importance to the city. When Sir Stamford Raffles reached the Singapore River in January 1819, he found the Orang Laut people here. He immediately began negotiations with the "Temenggung", a nobleman from Johor who had ruled the area until then and had led the group that had settled there since 1811. Raffles must have recognized the importance of the river from the moment he landed, for in 1819 work began on draining the north bank for the construction of Government House. From 1822 a land reclamation project was started on the south bank and retaining walls and stairs were built on the banks of the river. The mouth of the Singapore River was originally the old port of Singapore, naturally bordered by the city-state's southern islands. Historically, the city of Singapore initially grew around this port, so that the estuary advanced to become a center of trade, commerce and finance early on. To this day, the area around the old estuary of the Singapore River, the Downtown Core, remains Singapore's most expensive and economically most important district. In the past, it was mainly the Chinese who lived on the south bank, the Malays settled further upstream in Kampongs, and the Indians inhabited the districts of Rochor, Kallang and Geylang until they were pushed out by the Chinese. In earlier times the Singapore River was the colony's lifeline. It was the main artery of commerce, the center of commerce and the heart of the re-export trade. The river was once full of barges, bumboats (provision boats), tongkangs and sampans, while ox-carts trudged along its banks to and from the once rocky estuary. However, as trade expanded, traffic density increased. which also increased the pollution of the river. Also, either due to a lack of knowledge at the time or lack of foresight, the bridges were built too low and the river was too shallow to accommodate the expanding shipping industry. Nonetheless, the historic course of the river that Raffles once carved out of salty alluvium, sandbars and mangrove swamps was at the time a testament to the British rule that defined Singapore until 1962.
Translated by Google •
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