Singapore - The Lion City. Singapore may be small, but packs in quite a punch. Only about 655 square kilometers in area, it is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with about 6430 people per square kilometer. Although it is one of the 20 smallest countries in the world, its economy is a world leader, and has the world's busiest port in terms of tonnage handled.
Today the financial and technological hub of South East Asia, Singapore was once a sleepy Malay fishing village, which came into its own as a British trading colony in the 1800's. The population is a mix of Malays,
Chinese and Indians with a smattering of other ethnic nationalities. There are four official languages in Singapore - Mandarin, Tamil, Malay and English.
The Chinese ethnic population is originally from South-east China from the provinces of Fukian and Guangdong.
Immigrants from the Malaysian peninsula, Sumatra, Java and other islands of the Malay Archipelago have thronged the state. About two-thirds of the Indians are Tamil, with a smattering of Malayalis, Punjabis and Gujratis.