The diamond-shaped island of Singapore is 42km from east to west at its widest points, and 23km from north to south. The downtown city areas huddle at the southern tip of the diamond, radiating out from the mouth of the
Singapore River
. Two northeast-southwest roads form a dual spine to the central area, both of them traversing the river. One starts out as
North Bridge Road
, crosses the river and becomes
South Bridge Road
; the other begins as
Victoria Street
, becomes Hill Street and skirts Chinatown as
New Bridge Road
.
At the very heart of the city, on the north bank, the
Colonial District
is home to a cluster of buildings that recall the days of early British rule - Parliament House, the cathedral, the Supreme Court, the Cricket Club and, most famously,
Raffles Hotel.
Moving west, the fringes of
Fort Canning Park
has several attractions, including Singapore's National Museum. From here, it's a five-minute stroll to the eastern end of
Orchard Road
, the main shopping area in the city. North from Fort Canning Park you soon enter
Little India
, whose main drag - Serangoon Road - is around fifteen minutes' walk from
Raffles Hotel.
Ten minutes southeast from Little India, Singapore's traditional
Arab Quarter
squats at the intersection of North Bridge Road and Arab Street.
South, across the river, the monolithic towers of the
Financial District
cast long shadows over
Chinatown
, whose row of shop-houses stretches for around one kilometre, as far as Cantonment Road. Singapore's
World Trade Centre
is a fifteen-minute walk southwest of the outskirts of Chinatown, and from there cable cars run across to
Sentosa
.
The
rest of the island
is crossed by expressways, of which the main ones are the east-west
Pan Island Expressway
and the
East Coast Parkway/Ayer Rajah Expressway
, both of which run from Changi to Jurong, and the
Bukit Timah Expressway
, which branches off north from the Pan Island Expressway at Bukit Timah new town, running north to Woodlands. At Woodlands, a causeway links Singapore with Malaysia.
