Beautiful Singapore by heshandemel

Singapore is celebrating 49th National Day Today (Aug 9). Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian island city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the Singapore Strait to its south. Part of various local empires since being inhabited in the second century AD, modern Singapore was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles as a trading post of the East India Company in 1819 with the permission from the Johor Sultanate. The British obtained sovereignty over the island in 1824 and Singapore became one of the British Straits Settlements in 1826. Occupied by the Japanese during World War II, Singapore declared independence from the United Kingdom, uniting with other former British territories to form Malaysia in 1963, although it was separated from Malaysia two years later. Since then, it has had a massive increase in wealth, and is one of the Four Asian Tigers. Singapore is the world's fourth-leading financial centre, and its port is one of the five busiest ports in the world. The economy depends heavily on exports and refining imported goods, especially in manufacturing, which constituted 26% of Singapore's GDP in 2005. In terms of purchasing power parity, Singapore has the third-highest per capita income in the world. (Source: Wikipedia) This photo was taken during the National Day rehearsal recently. via 500px http://j.mp/1B2XJXa