President: S. R. Nathan (1999)

Prime Minister: Lee Hsien Loong (2004)

Area: 267 sq mi (692.7 sq km)

Population (2005 est.): 4,425,720 (growth rate: 1.6%); birth rate: 9.5/1000; infant mortality rate: 2.3/1000; life expectancy: 81.6; density per sq mi: 16,548

Capital and largest city (2003 est.): Singapore, 3,438,600

Monetary unit: Singapore dollar

Languages: Malay (national), Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, English (all official)

Ethnicity/race: Chinese 76.7%, Malay 14%, Indian 7.9%, other 1.4%

Religions: Buddhist (Chinese), Islam (Malays), Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, Confucianist

Literacy rate: 93% (2003 est.)

Economic summary:
GDP/PPP (2004 est.): $120.9 billion; per capita $27,800. Real growth rate: 8.1%. Inflation: 1.7%. Unemployment: 3.4%. Arable land: 2%. Agriculture: rubber, copra, fruit, orchids, vegetables, poultry, eggs, fish, ornamental fish. Labor force: 2.18 million; financial, business, and other services 35%, manufacturing 21%, construction 13%, transportation and communication 9%, other 22%. Industries: electronics, chemicals, financial services, oil drilling equipment, petroleum refining, rubber processing and rubber products, processed food and beverages, ship repair, offshore platform construction, life sciences, entrepot trade. Natural resources: fish, deepwater ports. Exports: $174 billion (f.o.b., 2004 est.): machinery and equipment (including electronics), consumer goods, chemicals, mineral fuels. Imports: $155.2 billion (2004 est.): machinery and equipment, mineral fuels, chemicals, foodstuffs. Major trading partners: Malaysia, U.S., Hong Kong, Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea. Member of Commonwealth of Nations

Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 1.95 million (2000); mobile cellular: 2.74 million (2000). Radio broadcast stations: AM 0, FM 15, shortwave 5 (1998). Radios: 2.6 million (2000). Television broadcast stations: 6 (2000). Televisions: 1.33 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 9 (2000). Internet users: 2.31 million (2002).
Transportation: Railways: total: 38.6 km. Highways: total: 3,066 km; paved: 3,066 km (including 150 km of expressways); unpaved: 0 km (1999). Ports and harbors: Singapore. Airports: 9 (2002).

Geography:
The Republic of Singapore consists of the main island of Singapore, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, and 58 nearby islands.

Government : Parliamentary republic.

History:
Inhabitants of the Malaysian peninsula and the island of Singapore first migrated to the area between 2500 and 1500 B.C. (see Malaysia). British and Dutch interest in the region grew with the spice trade, and the trading post of Singapore was founded in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles. It was made a separate Crown colony of Britain in 1946, when the former colony of the Straits Settlements was dissolved. The other two settlements on the peninsula—Penang and Malacca—became part of the Union of Malaya, and the small island of Labuan was transferred to North Borneo. The Cocos (or Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island were transferred to Australia in 1955 and in 1958, respectively.

Singapore attained full internal self-government in 1959, and Lee Kwan Yew, an economic visionary with an authoritarian streak, took the helm as prime minister. On Sept. 16, 1963, Singapore joined Malaya, Sabah (North Borneo), and Sarawak in the Federation of Malaysia. It withdrew from the Federation on Aug. 9, 1965, and a month later proclaimed itself a republic.

Under Lee, Singapore developed into one of the cleanest, safest, and most economically prosperous cities in Asia. However, Singapore's strict rules of civil obedience also drew criticism from those who said the nation's prosperity was achieved at the expense of individual freedoms.

For more, please visit Department of Statistics website www.singstat.gov.sg/

Land:
Lying just north of the equator and located between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, Singapore is situated at the convergence of some of the world's major sea-lanes. It is separated from Indonesia to the south by the Singapore Strait and from Malaysia to the north by the Johore Strait. Singapore island is low-lying and is composed of a granitic core (rising to 580 ft/177 m at Bukit Timah, the country's highest point) surrounded by sedimentary lowlands. Singapore has a tropical rain-forest climate with uniformly high temperatures and rainfall throughout the year. The island was once covered by rain forest, which is now limited to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. The coast is broken by many inlets. Keppel Harbor, the heart of the port of Singapore, is a natural deepwater anchorage between Singapore and the islands of Brani and Sentosa (Blakang Mati), off the central coast of Singapore island.

The older urban areas of the city lie to the north and northeast of the port. Jurong Industrial Estate (c.20 sq mi/50 sq km), an industrial park built largely on reclaimed swampland, is in SW Singapore. The city-state's architecture is a mix of British colonial, traditional Malay and Chinese, and modern. Among Singapore's notable buildings are the city hall, the Raffles Hotel, the Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall, the bristly, aluminum-clad Esplanade performance complex, and Old St. Andrew's Cathedral. The National Univ. of Singapore, the Nanyang Technological Univ., the Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and the Singapore Polytechnic are the leading educational institutions, and there are art, history, and science museums. Singapore has a botanic garden, a zoo, and a bird park as well as many parks. Sentosa island has been developed as a recreation and amusement complex.

People:
As a city-state, Singapore is one of the world's most densely populated countries with about 12,000 people per sq mi (about 4,600 people per sq km). A massive urban renewal program, begun in the 1960s, has replaced virtually all of Singapore's slums with modern housing units. As a result of family planning and a strict immigration policy, the annual rate of population increase has declined to just over 1%, down from 4.5% in the 1950s. The population is over 75% Chinese; Malays and Indians constitute large minorities. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Christianity are the religions of Singapore. The country has four official languages—Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English—and one of the world's highest literacy rates (a product of a fine uniform education system conducted in all the official languages).