Temasek

Temasek was the settlement on the island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, where ships passed between the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea. Around 1330 the Chinese traveller Wang Dayuan described two communities there: Long Ya Men, the Dragon's Teeth Gate, whose people were prone to piracy, and Ban Zu, on a hill, whose people were honest. Archaeology on Fort Canning Hill reveals a fortified town with an earthen wall and moat, stone and brick foundations, and Chinese, Indian and Sri Lankan porcelain, coins and gold ornaments.

Wang wrote that Siamese ships attacked the moat with about seventy vessels a few years before his visit and were held off for a month. The Javanese Nagarakretagama of 1365 lists Tumasik among Majapahit's vassals. The Malay Annals tell of the prince Sang Nila Utama, who saw a lion here and founded Singapura, the Lion City, while Portuguese sources say Parameswara, driven from Palembang, ruled the island for five years before being forced out to found Malacca. The main settlement on the hill was abandoned as Malacca rose. After the Portuguese took Malacca in 1511 the island passed to Johor, and in 1613 the Portuguese burned the outpost. On 29 January 1819 Stamford Raffles landed, and the island became a British free port that grew to a regional capital by 1836.