Merlion Park

Merlion Park, a landmark of Singapore, is a major tourist attraction at One Fullerton, Singapore, near the Central Business District (CBD). Two structures of the Merlion are located at the park. The original merlion structure measures 8.6 metres tall, whilst a Merlion cub located near the original statue measures 2 metres tall.

History

1964 to present

The park was first designed as an emblem for the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in 1964. On 15 September 1972, the park was officially opened at an installation ceremony of the statue, officiated by then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The original statue of the Merlion used to stand at the mouth of the Singapore River. The statue was made from November 1971 to August 1972 by the late Singapore sculptor, Mr. Lim Nang Seng, it measures 8.6 metres high and weighs 70 tons.

Upon the completion of Esplanade Bridge in 1997, the statue could no longer be viewed clearly from the Marina Bay Waterfront, so on 23 April 2002, the statue was relocated to a new pier specially built on the other side of Esplanade Bridge. With a cost of $7.5 million, the move was finished on 25 April 2002, where it is now located adjacent to One Fullerton hotel.

Merlion

The Merlion (Malay: Singa-Laut) is a traditional creature in western heraldry that depicts a creature with a lion's head and a body of a fish.

In Singapore, it has become a marketing icon used as a mascot and national personification of Singapore.

Merlions do not feature in any local folklore or myths of Singapore, and was only used in Singapore initially as the logo for the tourism board.

The merlion occurs in a number of different artistic traditions. Lions with fishtails can be found on Indian murals at Ajanta and Mathura, and on Etruscan coins of the Hellenistic period. Merlions, or ‘heraldic sea-lions’, are an established element of Western heraldry, and have been used on the coat of arms of the cities of Portsmouth and Great Yarmouth in the United Kingdom; the City of Manila; and the East India Company.

Singapore Merlion

The Merlion is the national personification of Singapore.

Its name combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion". The fish body represents Singapore's origin as a fishing village when it was called Temasek, which means "sea town" in Javanese. The lion head represents Singapore's original name—Singapura—meaning "lion city" or "kota singa".

Singapore

Singapore (ⁱ/ˈsɪŋɡəpɔːr/), officially the Republic of Singapore, and often referred to as the Lion City, the Garden City, and the Red Dot, is a global city in Southeast Asia and the world's only island city-state. It lies one degree (137 km) north of the equator, at the southernmost tip of continental Asia and peninsular Malaysia, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south. Singapore's territory consists of the diamond-shaped main island and 62 islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23% (130 km²), and its greening policy has covered the densely populated island with tropical flora, parks and gardens.

The islands were settled from the second century AD by a series of local empires. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles founded modern Singapore as a trading post of the East India Company; after the company collapsed, the islands were ceded to Britain and became part of its Straits Settlements in 1826. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by Japan. It gained independence from Britain in 1963, by uniting with other former British territories to form Malaysia, but was expelled two years later over ideological differences. After early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian tiger economy, based on external trade and its human capital.

Marina Bay

Marina Bay may refer to the following places:

Park

A park is an area of natural, semi-natural, or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of grassy areas, rocks, soil, and trees, but may also contain buildings and other artifacts such as monuments, fountains or playground structures. In North America, many parks have fields for playing sports such as soccer, baseball and football, and paved areas for games such as basketball. Many parks have trails for walking, biking and other activities. Some parks are built adjacent to bodies of water or watercourses, and these parks may comprise a beach or boat dock area. Often, the smallest parks are in urban areas, where a park may take up only a city block or less. Urban parks often have benches for sitting and they may contain picnic tables and barbecue grills. Parks have differing rules regarding whether dogs can be brought into the park: some parks prohibit dogs; some parks allow them with restrictions (e.g., use of a leash); and some parks, which may be called "dog parks," permit dogs to run off-leash.