Singapore ranks highly in key social indicators: education, healthcare, quality of life, personal safety, infrastructure, and housing, with a home-ownership rate of 88 percent.

With a multicultural population and in recognition of the cultural identities of the major ethnic groups within the nation, Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil.

While the country is de jure a multi-party democracy with free elections, the government under the People's Action Party (PAP) wields widespread control and political dominance.

[25] Although the historicity of the accounts as given in the Malay Annals is the subject of academic debates,[26] it is nevertheless known from various documents that Singapore in the 14th century, then known as Temasek, was a trading port under the influence of both the Majapahit Empire and the Siamese kingdoms,[27] and was a part of the Indosphere.

[51] After hearing rumours that they were to be sent to fight the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim state, the soldiers rebelled, killing their officers and several British civilians before the mutiny was suppressed by non-Muslim troops arriving from Johore and Burma.

As a consequence, after World War II broke out in 1939, the fleet was fully occupied with defending Britain, leaving Singapore vulnerable to Japanese invasion.

He resigned and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock in 1956, and after further negotiations Britain agreed to grant Singapore full internal self-government for all matters except defence and foreign affairs on 3 June 1959.

[104] Lee Kuan Yew's emphasis on rapid economic growth, support for business entrepreneurship, and limitations on internal democracy shaped Singapore's policies for the next half-century.

[110] In response, Singapore has seen several significant political changes, such as the introduction of the non-constituency members of parliament in 1984 to allow up to three losing candidates from opposition parties to be appointed as MPs.

[117] The PAP suffered its worst ever electoral results in 2011, winning just 60% of votes, amidst debate over issues including the influx of foreign workers and the high cost of living.

[141] MPs host weekly political surgeries, called "Meet-the-People Sessions", where they help constituents resolve personal issues which can be related to housing, financial assistance, and immigration.

[122] The long-standing hegemony of the People's Action Party has led to Singapore being described by academics as an illiberal democracy,[147][148][149][150] or a soft-authoritarian state in which the PAP faces little to no feasible political competition to its rule of the country.

[155] According to Gordon P. Means, professor emeritus of political science at McMaster University, Singapore reinvented the "benevolent" yet "highly authoritarian" colonial system of governance inherited from Britain rather than forging a full democracy.

A conservative ideology of "Asian values" evolved to replace British rule, based on "communal loyalty, distrust of government, and avoidance of individual or collective responsibility for wider public interests", with less regard for human rights in the nascent Western sense.

[156] The fact that "neither the public nor elites had experience with democracy" helped create Singapore's political culture, as dominated by status-focused hierarchies committed to economic development.

[152] The legacy of Asian values and the limited political culture within Singapore has led to the country being described as "classic illustration of soft authoritarianism",[155] and "profoundly illiberal".

Males who have yet to complete pre-university education, are awarded the Public Service Commission (PSC) scholarship, or are pursuing a local medical degree can opt to defer their draft.

[207] Due to airspace and land constraints, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) maintains a number of overseas bases in Australia, the United States, and France.

[237] In 2004, Amnesty International claimed that some legal provisions of the Singapore system for the death penalty conflict with "the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty".

[238] The government has disputed Amnesty's claims, stating that their "position on abolition of the death penalty is by no means uncontested internationally" and that the report contains "grave errors of facts and misrepresentations".

[249] Pimps often traffic women from neighbouring countries such as China, Malaysia and Vietnam at their brothels as well as rented apartments and hostels for higher profit margins when they get a cut from customers.

Along with Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, Singapore is one of the Four Asian Tigers, and has surpassed its peers in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita.

[259] Singapore attracts a large amount of foreign investment as a result of its location, skilled workforce, low tax rates, advanced infrastructure and zero-tolerance against corruption.

[304] In 1967, to combat this decline in natural space, the government introduced the vision of making Singapore a "garden city",[305] aiming to improve quality of life.

[335] Taxis are a popular form of transport as the fares are relatively affordable when compared to many other developed countries, whilst cars in Singapore are the most expensive to own worldwide.

[404] Starting in 2001, the government introduced a series of programs to increase fertility, including paid maternity leave, childcare subsidies, tax relief and rebates, one-time cash gifts, and grants for companies that implement flexible work arrangements;[402] nevertheless, live births have continued to decline, hitting a record low in 2022.

[434][437] Nearly half a million speak other ancestral Southern varieties of Chinese, mainly Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese, as their home language, although the use of these is declining in favour of Mandarin or just English.

This has three components: Medifund, which provides a safety net for those not able to otherwise afford healthcare; Medisave, a compulsory national medical savings account system covering about 85% of the population; and Medishield, a government-funded health insurance program.

[504][505] Literature of Singapore, or "SingLit", consists of a collection of literary works by Singaporeans written chiefly in the country's four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil.

Its men's water polo team won the SEA Games gold medal for the 27th time in 2017, continuing Singapore sport's longest winning streak.