The Republic of Singapore is an island country in south east Asia located on Singapore Island off the southern tip of Malaysia. It has a total area of 632.6 km2. The climate is tropical; hot, humid and rainy with no pronounced wet or dry seasons; thunderstorms occur on an average of 40% of all days, and are even more frequent during April, occuring on two out of every three days. The terrain is lowland with a gently undulating central plateau contains water catchment area and nature preserve. Natural resources are fish and deep-water ports. The majority of Chinese are Buddhists or atheists, most of the Malays are Muslim and there are also minorities that include Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Taoists and Confucianists. The official language is English, the national language Malay with Chinese and Tamil is also spoken.
Singapore was originally a town on the swampy island, founded by Sir Thomas Raffles in 1819 and leased from the Sultan of Johore by the East India Company, before becoming a British colony during the 19th century and self governing in 1946 and independent in 1965. Research Singapore
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Abbreviations
Gazetteer
Research Singapore
