The Civic District

Modern Singapore began here. On the north bank of the Singapore River lies the Padang, an open lawn faced by white colonnaded buildings: the former Supreme Court and City Hall, joined in 2015 to become National Gallery Singapore, which holds more than 9,000 works of Singaporean and South-East Asian art from the 19th century on.

At the mouth of the river stands the Fullerton Building, granite and neo-classical. Completed in 1928 as the General Post Office, it opened as a hotel in 2001 and was named a National Monument in December 2015; distances across Singapore were once measured from it. To the north, on Beach Road, is Raffles, founded by the Armenian Sarkies brothers in 1887 and reopened in 2019 after a full restoration, with 115 suites.

Along the river the old shophouses of Boat Quay and Clarke Quay are now restaurants and cafés on the water, and wooden bumboats still pass beneath the bridges. Inland are Swissôtel The Stamford, the Carlton, the InterContinental and ibis Singapore on Bencoolen.

A few minutes' drive to the north-east is Kampong Glam, set aside in the 19th century for Sultan Hussein Shah and the Malay-Muslim community. The Sultan Mosque stands at its centre, with Arab Street, Bussorah Street and Haji Lane around it: textiles, carpets and halal restaurants. For a visitor from the Gulf it is the part of the city that feels closest to home.