Current Time in Tampines Estate, Singapore

Tampines Estate lies in the eastern part of Singapore, roughly fifteen kilometres from the city centre and only a short distance inland from Changi Airport. It is one of the island's largest planned new towns, laid out on gently rolling ground that was once covered by forest, plantations and sand quarries. The name comes from the tempinis, a hardwood tree that grew here in abundance, and the equatorial climate brings warmth, humidity and sudden heavy showers throughout the year.

Around a quarter of a million people live in the town, which makes it one of the most populous residential districts in Singapore. Its importance lies in housing, retail and industry: it is a regional centre with a cluster of shopping malls, offices and government services, and its industrial park hosts electronics and semiconductor plants that form part of the country's advanced manufacturing sector.

Until the second half of the twentieth century the area was rural, with rubber and coconut smallholdings, villages and pig farms, and later with large sand quarries whose pits eventually became reservoirs and parks. Development began in the late 1970s, when the Housing and Development Board laid out a new town to rehouse families from crowded older districts. Tampines was planned with particular care, grouping shops, schools, parks and transport around a compact town centre, and in the 1990s it received a United Nations award for its design, which became a model for later Singaporean towns.

The town centre is the busiest part, with three large shopping malls facing one another across a pedestrian plaza and a bus interchange beneath them. Our Tampines Hub, a vast community complex containing a stadium, swimming pools, a library, a hawker centre, clinics and performance spaces, is one of the most ambitious civic buildings in the country and is used by residents from morning until late at night. Tampines Eco Green offers a deliberately wild landscape of secondary forest, freshwater marsh and meadow where herons and kingfishers nest, while nearby Bedok Reservoir and Pasir Ris Park provide water sports, cycling and mangrove boardwalks. The town was designated Singapore's first cycling town, and a dense network of dedicated paths links every neighbourhood.

Daily life mirrors Singapore's diversity, with Chinese, Malay, Indian and expatriate families living side by side in the same blocks. Hawker centres and coffee shops serve chicken rice, nasi lemak, roti prata and laksa at all hours, void decks host weddings and funerals, and festivals from Chinese New Year to Hari Raya and Deepavali fill the streets with decoration.

Two mass rapid transit lines meet at Tampines, expressways run to the city and the airport, and an integrated transport hub gathers buses, trains and taxis in one place. Temasek Polytechnic, ITE College East and international schools give the area a large student population, with a university of technology and design nearby.

Tampines Estate is a good place to see how modern Singapore actually lives, in a carefully planned, green and thoroughly multicultural town.