Flag of Singapore

Flag of Singapore
The Flag of Singapore was adopted in 1959, the year Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire. It remained the national flag upon the country's independence from Malaysia on 9 August 1965. The design is a horizontal bicolour of red above white, overlaid in the canton (upper-left quadrant) by a white crescent moon facing a pentagon of five small white five-pointed stars. The elements of the flag denote a young nation on the ascendant, universal brotherhood and equality, and national ideals.

Vessels at sea do not use the national flag as an ensign. Merchant vessels and pleasure craft fly a civil ensign of red charged in white with a variant of the crescent and stars emblem in the centre. Non-military government vessels such as coast guard ships fly a state ensign of blue with the national flag in the canton, charged with an eight-pointed red and white compass rose in the lower fly. Naval warships fly a naval ensign similar to the state ensign, but in white with a red compass rose emblem.

Rules defined by the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act govern the use and display of the national flag. Private citizens are allowed to incorporate the flag into designs for other objects from 1 July to 30 September, so long as the action is not disrespectful.

Singapore was under British rule in the 19th century, having been amalgamated into the Straits Settlements together with Malacca and Penang. The flag that was used to represent the Settlements was a British Blue Ensign defaced with a red diamond containing three gold crowns—one for each settlement—separated by a white inverted pall, which resembles an inverted Y.

The Settlement of Singapore had no separate flag, although the city was granted a coat of arms which featured a lion in 1911. During the occupation of Singapore by the Japanese during the Second World War, the Japanese national flag was used on land by the military and during public events. Soon after the Second World War, Singapore became an independent Crown colony and adopted its own flag. It was modified from the Straits Settlements flag to reduce the number of crowns from three to one. Upon Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne, the crown within the pall was changed to the crown of St. Edward.

Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire on 3 June 1959. Six months later, upon the installation of the new Yang di-Pertuan Negara (head of state) on 3 December 1959, the national flag was officially adopted, along with the state coat of arms and the national anthem Majulah Singapura ("Onward Singapore"). Then-deputy prime minister Toh Chin Chye discussed the creation of the national flag in a 1989 interview:

"Although we were self governing it was necessary right from the beginning that we should rally enough different races together as a Singapore nation... Apart from the anthem we have to produce the flag and the crest, we insisted that it was a Singapore state flag and should be flown side by side with the Union Jack."

The design of the flag was completed in two months by a committee headed by Toh. He initially wanted the flag's entire background to be red, but the Cabinet decided against this, as red was regarded as a rallying point for communism. Toh had opposed a red-and-white design as he considered it too similar to the flags of Indonesia and Poland, but the proposals for all-red, all-blue or blue-and-white designs were rejected. The flag, according to Toh, originally had only three stars (representing democracy, justice, and equality), but two more stars and a crescent were added later to distance it from the Malayan Communist Party emblem and to assure the Malay-Muslim community that Singapore was "not a Chinese state". According to an account given by Lee Kuan Yew, the Chinese majority wanted five stars based on the flag of the People's Republic of China while the Malay minority wanted a crescent moon to represent Islam. Both of these symbols were combined to create the national flag of Singapore.

On 30 November 1959, the Singapore State Arms and Flag and National Anthem Ordinance 1959 was passed to regulate the use and display of the State Arms and State Flag and the performance of the National Anthem. When presenting the motion to the Legislative Assembly of Singapore on 11 November 1959, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, the Minister for Culture, stated: "National flags, crest and anthem express symbolically the hopes and ideals of a people... The possession of a national flag and crest is, for a people, symbolic of self-respect."

In September 1962, the people of Singapore voted for merger with Malaya, Sarawak, and North Borneo to form Malaysia. The process was completed on 16 September 1963, when the Malaysian flag was hoisted on Singapore by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The Singapore flag was reconfirmed as the national flag when Singapore became fully independent from Malaysia on 9 August 1965.
National flag
Flag of Singapore
Country - Singapore

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Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude (137 km) north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bordering the Strait of Malacca to the west, the Singapore Strait to the south, the South China Sea to the east, and the Straits of Johor to the north. The country's territory is composed of one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet; the combined area of these has increased by 25% since the country's independence as a result of extensive land reclamation projects. It has the third highest population density in the world. With a multicultural population and recognising the need to respect cultural identities of the major ethnic groups within the nation, Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. English is the lingua franca and numerous public services are available only in English. Multiracialism is enshrined in the constitution and continues to shape national policies in education, housing, and politics.

Singapore's history dates back at least a millennium, having been a maritime emporium known as Temasek and subsequently as a major constituent part of several successive thalassocratic empires. Its contemporary era began in 1819 when Stamford Raffles established Singapore as an entrepôt trading post of the British Empire. In 1867, the colonies in Southeast Asia were reorganised and Singapore came under the direct control of Britain as part of the Straits Settlements. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by Japan in 1942, and returned to British control as a separate Crown colony following Japan's surrender in 1945. Singapore gained self-governance in 1959 and in 1963 became part of the new federation of Malaysia, alongside Malaya, North Borneo, and Sarawak. Ideological differences, most notably the perceived encroachment of the egalitarian "Malaysian Malaysia" political ideology led by Lee Kuan Yew into the other constituent entities of Malaysia—at the perceived expense of the bumiputera and the policies of Ketuanan Melayu—eventually led to Singapore's expulsion from the federation two years later; Singapore became an independent sovereign country in 1965.