Singapore officially Republic of Singapore Island country. South¬ east Asia. Situated off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, it comprises Singapore island and 60 islets. Area: 269 sq mi (697 sq km). Population
(2005 est.): 4,291,000. Capitaclass="underline" Singapore.
Three-fourths of the people are of Chinese ethnicity; most of the rest are Malays and Indians. Languages: English, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay, Tamil (all official).
Religions: Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Daoism, Hinduism. Currency: Singapore dollar. Nearly two-thirds of the island’s hilly landscape lies below 50 ft (15 m) above sea level. It has a hot, humid climate. Although only about 2% of its land is arable, it is highly productive cropland. The
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Singapore ► Sino-French War I 1757
economy is based largely on international trade and finance; there are more than 100 commercial banks, most of which are foreign, and the headquar¬ ters of the Asian Dollar Market is located there. The port is one of the larg¬ est in the world, and the country is one of the world’s leading petroleum refiners. Manufacturing (notably electronic equipment) is also important. Singapore is a republic with one legislative house; its chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. Long inhab¬ ited by fishermen and pirates, it was an outpost of the Sumatran empire of Shrivijaya until the 14th century, when it passed to Java and then Ayutthaya (Siam). It became part of the Malacca empire in the 15th century. In the 16th century the Portuguese controlled the area; they were followed by the Dutch in the 17th century. In 1819 it was ceded to the British East India Company, becoming part of the Straits Settlements and the centre of British colonial activity in Southeast Asia. During World War II the Japanese occu¬ pied the island (1942-45). In 1946 it became a crown colony. It achieved full internal self-government in 1959, became part of Malaysia in 1963, and gained independence in 1965. Singapore is influential in the affairs of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The country’s domi¬ nant voice in politics for 30 years after independence was Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore has become a regional economic powerhouse.
Singapore City (2002 est.: 4,204,000), capital of the Republic of Sin¬ gapore. A free port centred on the southern part of Singapore island, it so dominates the island that the republic is now commonly considered a city-state. Known as the Garden City for its many parks and tree-lined streets, it offers glimpses into the cultures brought to it by immigrants from all parts of Asia. Traditionally founded by a Shrivijayan prince, it was an important Malay city in the 13th century. Destroyed by the Jav¬ anese in the 14th century, it was refounded by Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company in 1819. It became the capital of the Straits Settlements in 1833 and developed as a port and naval base; today it is one of the world’s great commercial centres. Its thriving banking, insurance, and brokerage firms make it the chief trading and financial centre of Southeast Asia. It is home to the National University of Singapore (1980).
Singer, Isaac Bashevis Yiddish Yitskhok Bashevis Zinger (b.
July 14?, 1904, Radzymin, Pol., Russian Empire—d. July 24, 1991, Surf- side, Fla., U.S.) Polish-born U.S. writer of novels, short stories, and essays. He received a traditional Jewish education at the Warsaw Rab¬ binical Seminary. After publishing his first novel, Satan in Goray (1932), he immigrated to the U.S. in 1935 and wrote for the Jewish Daily For¬ ward, a Yiddish newspaper in New York. Though he continued to write mostly in Yiddish, he personally supervised the English translations. Depicting Jewish life in Poland and the U.S., his works are a rich blend of irony, wit, and wisdom, flavoured distinctively with the occult and the grotesque. His works include the novels The Family Moskat (1950), The Magician of Lublin (1960), and Enemies: A Love Story (1972; film, 1989); the story collections Gimpel the Fool (1957), The Spinoza of Market Street (1961), and A Crown of Feathers (1973, National Book Award); and the play Yentl the Yeshiva Boy (1974; film, 1983). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978.
Singer, Isaac Merritt (b. Oct. 27,1811, Pittstown, N.Y., U.S.—d. July 23, 1875, Torquay, Devon, Eng.) U.S. inventor and manufacturer. He became an apprentice machinist at 19. He patented a rock-drilling machine (1839) and a metal- and wood-carving machine (1849) before producing an improved version of Elias Howe’s sewing machine in 1851 and soon thereafter founding I.M. Singer & Co. (see Singer Co.) to manu¬ facture it. Howe’s successful patent-infringement suit against him in 1854 did not prevent Singer from manufacturing his machine, and his company was soon the world’s largest sewing-machine producer. He patented numerous further improvements in the technology; he also pioneered the use of installment credit plans.
Singer NV U.S. sewing-machine manufacturer. The company began in 1851, when Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-75) patented the first practical sew¬ ing machine for domestic use. By 1860 I.M. Singer & Co. was the larg¬ est maker of sewing machines in the world. In 1863 its business was taken over by the newly incorporated Singer Manufacturing Co. The company began mass-producing domestic electric machines in 1910 and pioneered marketing innovations such as the installment plan. It later expanded into power tools, floor-care products, furniture, and electronics; it adopted the name Singer Co. in 1963. Its sewing-machine and furniture operations were spun off into a separate company, SSMC Inc., in 1986. Two years later it was the subject of a hostile takeover by investor Paul Bilzerian, who in 1989 sold Singer’s assets to Semi-Tech, a Hong Kong company
controlled by investor James Henry Ting. Still one of the world’s largest sewing-machine manufacturers, the company declared bankruptcy in 1999 and was reorganized as Singer NV in 2000.
Singitic \sin-'ji-tik\ Gulf Inlet of the Aegean Sea, northeastern Greece. It is the larger and deeper of two gulfs (the other being Ierisou Gulf) that extend into the peninsula of the historical region in Greece known as Macedonia. The silted-up remains of a canal completed by Xerxes in 480 bc link the two gulfs. The main community on the gulf is Ouranopolis, a stop for tourists exploring Mount Athos.
single tax Tax on land values intended as the sole source of govern¬ ment revenues, replacing all existing taxes. Henry George proposed the single tax in his book Progress and Poverty (1879). The plan gained con¬ siderable support in subsequent decades but was never implemented. Advocates argued that since land is a fixed resource, the income it yields is a product of the economy’s growth and not individual effort, and that it therefore can fairly be taxed to support the government. Critics pro¬ tested that the single tax would take no account of an individual’s ability to pay, since there is no correlation between land ownership and total wealth or income.
Singspiel Ysiq-.spel, 'ziq-,shpel\ German "song-play" Eighteenth- century opera in the German language, containing spoken dialogue and usually comic in tone. The earliest Singspiels were light plays in which the dialogue was interspersed with popular songs. In Vienna the form had a brief but intense flowering that resulted in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s enduring Abduction from the Seraglio (1782) and The Magic Flute (1791). Singspiel evolved into transitional works such as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805) and ultimately gave rise to German Romantic opera. See also musical; operetta; zarzuela.
Sinhalese \,siq-g3-'lez\ Any member of the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. Their ancestors are believed to have come from northern India. Most Sinhalese are agriculturalists, and most adhere to Theravada Bud¬ dhism. Like other peoples of Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese have a caste soci¬ ety with a complex structure based largely on occupation. Today the Sinhalese number more than 12 million.