Location
Southeastern Asia
Population
5 686 000 (2020)
National currency
Singapore Dollar
Conditional reduction of currency
SGD
Climate, average max and min t°
Equatorial; average t in January is 1°C lower than in June; a lot of percipitation; the lowest t +19,4 °C, the highest +36°C
Time difference from Moscow
+5 hours
State language
English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil
Ethnic groups
Chinese 76,8 %, Malay 13,9%, Indian 7,9%, the rest are English, Arab, Jewish, Thai, Armenian, Japanese, Eurasians
Literacy rate
97,5% (2019)
History
The modern history of Singapore begins since 1819, when British statesman Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johoron behalf of the British East India Company to develop the southern part of Singapore as a British trading post. During World War II, Japan won the battle of Singapore and took it under control till the end of the war in 1945. Since 1959 Singapore had become an internally self-governing state within the Commonwealth. In 1963 Singapore declared independence from the United Kingdom and joined with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the new Federation of Malaysia. However, two years later it gained independence as the Republic of Singapore. Singapore’s secession was painless, as the leaders of Federation were suspicious about Singapore's majority of ethnic Chinese and worried that Singapore's economic clout would shift the center of power from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. From 1959 to 1990s despite the lack of resources (it even gets water from Malaysia), Singapore managed to solve most of the internal problems and made a leap from an undeveloped country to a highly developed country with high living standards.
Government type
Parliamentary republic
Executive branch
President and Cabinet led Prime-Minister
Legislative branch
Unicameral Parliament
Judicial branch
Supreme Court, consisting of High Court and Court of Appeal; minor courts
GDP per capita rank
2 (2020)
Corruption perceptions index rank
85 (2021)
