Singapore

Talking about my "countries collection", I've started 2013 pretty well... In these few days I've added several new countries on my "received countries" list. One of them is far Singapore, located about 10,000 from my hometwon ;)

Singapore is a city-state in Asia, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. The English name of Singapore is derived from the Malay word Singapura, hence the customary reference to the nation as the Lion City. Lions probably never lived there; the beast seen by Sang Nila Utama, who founded and named ancient Singapore, was most likely a tiger.

Singapore is an island country made up of 63 islands. The country is highly urbanised with very little primary rainforest remaining. There are slightly over 5 million people in Singapore, of which 2.91 million were born locally. Reflecting this diversity, the country has four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil.

 Singapore declared independence, 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. 

Many many thanks go to Spencer for the night view card and cute panda stamps!