Singapore Trivia Quiz Questions
What is Singapore?
A: Singapore is a sovereign island city-state in Southeast Asia.
Where is Singapore located?
A: About 85 miles north of the equator, at the southern tip of the Malay
Peninsula.
What lays to the south?
A: Indonesia's Riau Islands.
Singapore's territory consists of what?
A: One main island along with 58 other islets.
Since independence, extensive land reclamation has
increased its total size by how much?
A: 23% (130 square kilometers or 50 square miles).
Although its history stretches back millennia, modern
Singapore was founded in 1819 by whom?
A: Sir Stamford Raffles as a trading post of the British East
India Company.
After the Company's collapse in 1858, the islands came
under direct control by whom?
A: The British as a crown colony known as the Straits Settlements.
During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by
what country?
A: Japan, after which Britain occupied it again.
Singapore gained independence from the British Empire
in 1963 by doing what?
A: By joining Malaysia along with Sabah and Sarawak, but separated two years
later over ideological differences, becoming a fully sovereign state in
1965.
After early years of turbulence and despite lacking
natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as a what?
A: An Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce.
Singapore is the only country in Asia with a AAA
sovereign rating from whom?
A: All major rating agencies, and one of 11 worldwide.
Singapore is a highly developed country and is ranked
where on the UN Human Development Index?
A: 9th, the highest in Asia for a sovereign state, with the 7th highest GDP
per capita in the world.
It was ranked the most expensive city to live in from
2013 to 2019 by whom?
A: The Economist.
Singapore is placed highly in what key social
indicators?
A: Education, healthcare, quality of life, personal safety and housing, with
a home-ownership rate of 90%.
Singaporeans enjoy one of the world's longest what?
A: Life expectancy and one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the
world.
As of 2019, Singaporean citizens had visa-free or
visa-on-arrival access to how many countries and territories, ranking the
Singaporean passport 1st in the world, tied with Japan?
A: 189.
What are the four official languages of Singapore?
A: English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil.
Most Singaporeans are bilingual, with English serving
as what?
A: The nation's lingua franca, while Malay is the national language.
Nonetheless, only about 10% of the population speaks
what?
A: Malay, with the most commonly spoken language at home being English.
Its cultural diversity is reflected in its extensive
ethnic what?
A: Cuisine and major festivals.
A 2014 study by Pew Research Center found that
Singapore has the highest what of any country?
A: religious diversity.
Multiracialism has been enshrined in its what?
A: Its constitution since independence, and continues to shape national
policies in education, housing and politics.
Singapore has the Singapore Zoo, which was ranked which
is ranked as what?
A: The best zoo in Asia.
The Singapore Botanic Gardens is the only tropical
garden in the world to be honored as what?
A: A UNESCO World Heritage Site.
According to the Democracy Index in 2018, the country
is described as a what?
A: "A flawed democracy".
The earliest written record of Singapore occurs in a Chinese account from the third century, describing the island of Pú Luō Chūng.
In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of
Singapura was founded on the island by whom?
A: Sang Nila Utama.
The British governor Stamford Raffles arrived in
Singapore on 28 January 1819 and soon recognized what?
A: The island as a natural choice for a new port.
The island was then nominally ruled by Tengku Abdul
Rahman, the Sultan of Johor, who was controlled by whom?
A: The Dutch and the Bugis.
However, the Sultanate was weakened by what?
A: Factional division: the Temenggong (Chief Minister) of Tengku Abdul
Rahman, as well as his officials, were loyal to the Sultan's elder brother
Tengku Long, who was living in exile in Riau.
With the Temenggong's help, Raffles managed to do what?
A: To smuggle Tengku Long back into Singapore.
Raffles offered to recognize Tengku Long as the
rightful Sultan of Johor, under the title of Sultan Hussein, as well as
provide him with a yearly payment of $5000 and another $3000 to the
Temenggong; for what in return?
A: Sultan Hussein would grant the British the right to establish a trading
post on Singapore.
A formal treaty was signed on 6 February 1819 and what
was born?
A: Modern Singapore was born.
In 1824, the entire island as well as the Temenggong
became what?
A: A British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan.
In 1826, Singapore became what?
A: Part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British
India,
becoming the regional capital in 1836.
Prior to Raffles' arrival, there were how many people
living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of
Chinese?
A: About a thousand.
By 1860 the population had swelled to what?
A: Over 80,000, more than half being Chinese.
Many of these early immigrants came to what?
A: To work on the pepper and gambier plantations.
Later, in the 1890s, when the rubber industry also
became established in Malaya and Singapore, the island became a what?
A: A global center for rubber sorting and export.
Singapore was not greatly affected by the First World
War (1914–18), as the conflict did not what?
A: Spread to Southeast Asia.
The only significant event during the war was what?
A: The 1915 Singapore Mutiny by Muslim sepoys from British India, who were
garrisoned in Singapore.
After hearing rumors that they were to be sent to fight
the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim state, the soldiers did what?
A: They rebelled, killing their officers and several British civilians
before the mutiny was suppressed by non-Muslim troops arriving from Johore
and Burma.
