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Singapore
| In Sanskrit,"singa" means lion and "pura" means city. Thus giving a rough translation of the Lion City. The country's symbol is the merlion - a mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. |
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Sir Stamford Raffles is said to have founded the modern Singapore which he wanted so to secure British trading interests. He landed in 1819 and by 1824 he had successfully purchased the island for the British East India Company.
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Lee Kuan Yew became the first Singaporean to hold the title of Prime Minister in 1959. After leaving the newly born nation of Malaysia in 1963 he led a government that embarked on an ambitious industrialisation plan. By the 1980's Singapore was transformed from a fragile country with no natural resources to a newly industrialised economy.
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