Singaporean planning areas, found on the map

Every one on the map

Every place listed below can be asked in this game. Places you find in a passed round drop out of your remaining pool.

What the map tells you about each one

The paragraph the game shows when you find each one. Reading them first is not cheating.

Bishan

A leafy new town on an old Cantonese cemetery, with Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, where a concrete canal was turned back into a winding river.

Toa Payoh

The first new town built entirely by the housing board, begun in the 1960s, with its dragon playground and a busy town center around the MRT.

Novena

Home to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and a cluster of medical centers, the old Balestier shophouses and the Catholic church that gives the area its name.

Bukit Timah

Wealthy streets of bungalows and condominiums, private schools and the Singapore Botanic Gardens’ northern edge, named after the island’s highest hill.

Tanglin

The Singapore Botanic Gardens, embassies along Napier Road, Dempsey Hill’s old army barracks turned restaurants and some of the most expensive homes in the city.

Newton

A quiet area of condominiums best known for its open-air hawker center at the busy Newton roundabout.

Orchard

Singapore’s great shopping street, lined with malls such as ION Orchard and Ngee Ann City on land that once grew nutmeg and pepper.

River Valley

Condominiums and quiet streets between Orchard Road and the river, with the Great World mall and the old Valley Road that gave the area its name.

Museum

Fort Canning Park, the National Museum, the Peranakan Museum and the arts schools of Bras Basah, the cultural quarter of the colonial city.

Rochor

Little India along Serangoon Road and Kampong Glam around the Sultan Mosque, two of the old ethnic quarters Raffles laid out in his town plan.

Kallang

The Sports Hub and National Stadium beside the Kallang Basin, the old Kallang Airport terminal and the markets of Jalan Besar.

Geylang

A district of shophouses known for late-night food, the Malay heritage of Geylang Serai and the pastel Peranakan terraces of Joo Chiat.

Marine Parade

Katong’s shophouses and laksa stalls on the old shoreline, and East Coast Park on the reclaimed land beyond, with its beaches and cycle paths.

Marina East

Reclaimed land across the water from Gardens by the Bay, still largely empty and set aside for a future waterfront neighborhood.

Queenstown

Singapore’s first satellite town, named for Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and now home to the one-north science park and Haw Par Villa.

Bukit Merah

The Art Deco flats of Tiong Bahru, Mount Faber and the Southern Ridges, and the waterfront terminal where the cable car leaves for Sentosa.

Outram

Chinatown, with the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, the Sri Mariamman Temple and the shophouses of Tanjong Pagar and Duxton Hill.

Singapore River

The riverside quays where the port began: Boat Quay, Clarke Quay and Robertson Quay, old warehouses turned into bars and restaurants.

Downtown Core

The financial towers of Raffles Place, the colonial Civic District around the Padang, the Merlion, the Esplanade and Marina Bay Sands.

Marina South

Gardens by the Bay with its Supertrees and cooled glass domes, and the Marina Barrage across the mouth of the bay.

Straits View

A strip of reclaimed land along the seafront, where the cruise terminal and the new Greater Southern Waterfront are taking shape.

Woodlands

The northern gateway, where the Causeway and a checkpoint lead to Johor Bahru and hundreds of thousands cross to Malaysia each day.

Sembawang

A former British naval base with black-and-white officers’ houses, Sembawang Park’s beach and a quiet new town.

Yishun

A large new town of the 1980s beside Lower Seletar Reservoir, the butt of online jokes for its odd news stories.

Mandai

The Singapore Zoo, the Night Safari, River Wonders and the Bird Paradise, set in forest on the edge of the reservoirs.

Central Water Catchment

Forest around the MacRitchie, Peirce and Seletar reservoirs, the largest nature reserve in Singapore, with the TreeTop Walk swaying above the canopy.

Sungei Kadut

An industrial estate of timber yards and workshops by the Kranji Reservoir, now being redeveloped for new industry.

Lim Chu Kang

The last farmland in Singapore, with vegetable and fish farms, the Sungei Buloh wetlands and the Kranji War Cemetery nearby.

Simpang

Undeveloped land and mangroves on the north coast, set aside for future housing along the Johor Strait.

Seletar

A former Royal Air Force base, now Seletar Airport and an aerospace park, with colonial black-and-white houses around it.

Ang Mo Kio

One of the oldest new towns, from the 1970s, whose Hokkien name means red-haired man’s bridge, after a British surveyor.

Serangoon

A quiet residential area with landed estates and the NEX mall at Serangoon Central, where two MRT lines meet.

Hougang

A new town with deep Teochew roots, known for its old Catholic church and a long history of voting for the opposition.

Sengkang

A young new town of the 1990s and 2000s, served by a driverless light rail loop and full of young families.

Punggol

A waterfront new town built from the 2000s around a man-made waterway, with a promenade on the old coastal kampong land.

North-Eastern Islands

Pulau Ubin, the last island village with kampong houses and bike trails, and the wetlands of Chek Jawa, a short bumboat ride from Changi.

Pasir Ris

A seaside new town whose name means sandy beach, with a long coastal park, holiday chalets and mangroves.

Tampines

The largest new town in the east, a regional center with malls, offices and the Our Tampines Hub community complex.

Bedok

One of the most populous towns, with its food centers, the Bedok Reservoir and a stretch of East Coast Park.

Paya Lebar

Paya Lebar Air Base, the old international airport, due to close in the 2030s so the land can be rebuilt as a new town.

Changi

Changi Airport and Jewel, the old wartime prison and its chapel museum, and Changi Village, where bumboats leave for Pulau Ubin.

Changi Bay

Reclaimed land off the east coast where the airport is expanding, with a new Terminal 5 and a third runway on the way.

Choa Chu Kang

A western new town on old plantation land, served by a light rail loop, and home to the island’s largest cemetery.

Bukit Panjang

A new town at the foot of Bukit Timah Hill, where the nature reserve and the island’s highest point rise above the flats.

Tengah

The newest town, a forest town built from the late 2010s on former military land, with car-free town centers and a green corridor.

Bukit Batok

A new town around an old granite quarry, now the Little Guilin lake, and Bukit Batok Nature Park.

Jurong East

The regional center of the west, with malls, offices and the Jurong Lake Gardens, planned as a second business district.

Clementi

A new town beside the National University of Singapore and its Kent Ridge campus, named after a colonial governor.

Jurong West

The most populous planning area in Singapore, a sprawl of flats next to Nanyang Technological University.

Boon Lay

An industrial area on the southwest coast, where Jurong’s factories grew up after independence.

Pioneer

Factories, shipyards and a port along the southwest coast, the heart of Jurong’s industry.

Tuas

Heavy industry, the second link bridge to Malaysia and the new Tuas mega port, rising on reclaimed land.

Western Water Catchment

Reservoirs, forest and military training grounds, closed to the public and one of the least built-up parts of the island.

Western Islands

Jurong Island’s refineries, the landfill island of Semakau and the military islands off the southwest coast.

Southern Islands

Sentosa, with Universal Studios, beaches and resorts, plus Kusu, St John’s and the Sisters’ Islands further out.

How this one works

The other maps of Singapore

All three together on the Singapore atlas page, the country itself on the Singapore guide, and the other two hundred on the world map.