Talk:Singapore

Semi-protected edit request on 5 December 2020

'HDB' abbreviation is used without definition or explanation. Suggest hyperlink to entry so available on mouse over. Spelling out the abbreviation does not meaningfully clarify what the entity is, and 'HDB' is more is the term in wide usage, so the abbreviation, with link, is appropriate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board 47.208.27.40 (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

The page is already linked in the sentence prior to this; I have added HDB in parenthesis beside the link instead. I think the problem stems from the dual use of the term 'HDB' to refer to the government ministry and the form of public housing. Linking 'HDB' flats to the government ministry page would be incorrect. Seloloving (talk) 02:03, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Good solution, thank you 47.208.27.40 (talk) 20:16, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Fluff in the Water section

Removed section began with "Access to water is universal, affordable, efficient and of high quality", which is obviously PR fluff. Singapore has always faced serious challenges with its water supply, and Wikipedia needs to be a resource for facts rather than conditions that we wish existed. Kortoso (talk) 03:33, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Singapore facing challenges to securing its water supply from Malaysia does not dispute the fact that access to it is still reliable and sees very minimal disruption; those are two separate points. Could you recommend a more neutral sentence? Seloloving (talk) 05:06, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

It was an unsourced sentence, so a more neutral sentence should be crafted with appropriate sourcing. CMD (talk) 06:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't dispute that. That was precisely what I was asking Kortoso to recommend. Based on a quick search for sources, it seems the 'universal, affordable and high quality' claims came from the Water Action Decade, which is a United Nations initiative. I have also found sources about Singapore facing imminent water stress and that can be linked to the four national taps strategy. I propose:

Singapore considers water a national security issue and the government has sought to emphasise conservation. Access to water is universal, affordable and of high quality, though the country is projected to face significant water-stress by 2040. To circumvent this, the Public Utilities Board has implemented the "four national taps" strategy – water imported from neighbouring Malaysia, urban rainwater catchments, reclaimed water (NEWater) and seawater desalination.

References

Of course, if you can find a more neutral phrase for 'universal, affordable and of high quality', that would be appreciated. Seloloving (talk) 10:50, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if it's necessary to say it is universal affordable and of high quality, as I expect that to be a default assumption for a developed country, but I don't think it is non-neutral per se. I have no objections to that proposal, and do feel Singapore is a country where water supplies are an unusually notable issue. CMD (talk) 11:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I have decided not to include 'affordable' as it seems the most contentious of the three, while including the other two. Please do edit the page accordingly if you feel otherwise. Seloloving (talk) 11:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The total area does not add up accurately.

Hello, i'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but this is perplexing. Is Singapore's land area as a whole 728 km² (281 sq mi) as stated? I came across the Singapore Island article which states that only the main island is already at 710 km² (270 sq mi).

This is without taking the other larger islands of Singapore into account, such as Jurong, Sentosa, Tekong and Ubin. Surely all these islands do not make up only 18 km² (6.9 sq mi)? Jurong alone is 32 km² (12 sq mi)! What's happening here?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if one calculates all the total land area from the List of islands of Singapore article, it actually adds up to –

• First table – 732.56956 km² (282.84669 sq mi)
• Second table – 27.519 km² (10.625 sq mi)
• Third table – 38.5767 km² (14.8945 sq mi)

• Total – 798.66526 km² (308.36638 sq mi) ≈ 799 km² (308 sq mi).

Corrected i think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Enzotec (talk • contribs) 07:54, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

So am I right in saying that 728 km² (281 sq mi) is incorrect and the total land area is under counted or is there something that I am missing?. Is the Singapore Department of Statistics not counting military (Tekong) and restricted islands (Jurong) for some reason? or is it something else? What if 728 km² (281 sq mi) is actually just the main island after recent land reclamation projects within the last few years without taking the other islands into account? After all, that 710 km² (270 sq mi) number has been there since the early 2010s. If so, that would actually make the total land area today at 817 km² (315 sq mi).

If the source is vague, should Wikipedia state the inconsistency of the land area so that other readers might not be as confused as I do? I'm not sure what the course of action is.

Best, Allen

The data on Singapore Island and List of islands of Singapore seem to be wrong and lacking a source. The data on both pages were added by the same user. Pinging him as he was still active as of last year. @Deoma12: Could we know where you got the data and to when is it dated?

Regardless, according to the Singapore Land Authority, Singapore's total land area, including offshore islands, is 725.7 square kilometres as of 2019. Seloloving (talk) 00:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello, the areas of the various islands were taken from sources that were cited in articles by the National Library Board or the official websites of the authority that are managing the islands. One example would be Coral Island, which is managed by Sentosa. Do note that some of these smaller islands and islets might have been considered as part of a larger island in statistics released by the Singapore government. One such example would be the artificial islands of Chinese Garden and the Sentosa "islands" (Sandy, Treasure, Coral) that were created through land reclamation. There's no official map denoting how the authorities calculated the land area of the islands of Singapore as well. --Deoma12^(Talk) 11:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Would you be able to provide the sources for each of the islands, particularly Tekong, Ubin, Sentosa and other major islands? Otherwise I feel for the sake of consistency we should only retain the total land area as calculated by the Singapore Land Authority. Seloloving (talk) 02:42, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

We should beware of WP:SYNTH in using our own reasoning on totaling land area. Measuring land area is actually subjective; it depends on many arbitrary decisions on techniques, which different sources won't all do in the same manner, so cannot be compared or combined by editors. I think all we can do is quote a single reputable source for all of Singapore, as suggested. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 02:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

In regards to totalling the total land area of Singapore, I think it would be more factually correct to use the official statistics as provided by the government, rather than calculating it based on the List of islands of Singapore or the Singapore Island. As for the land areas on these articles, the former is a list that is meant to document the islands of Singapore and the land area of Singapore Island of the latter article would need to be cited with a official source. --Deoma12^(Talk) 06:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 February 2021

Tao70384 (talk) 03:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)singapore has ten thousand purple hippos?

Closing incoherent random edit request. The page does not mention anything about hippos, yet alone purple ones. Seloloving (talk) 03:27, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Jakarta Skyline Part 2.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:01, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: the image is used in Template:Largest Cities in Southeast Asia, which is embedded at the bottom of the page. – robertsky (talk) 01:13, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 April 2021

The third paragraph of the introduction section includes the line "Singapore is the only country in Asia with an AAA sovereign rating from all major rating agencies." The use of "an" before "AAA" is incorrect and should be edited to "a" because the reading of "AAA" is "triple A", not "A-A-A". https://www.municipalbonds.com/education/read/67/understanding-bond-ratings/#:~:text=Aaa%3A%20This%20is%20pronounced%20%E2%80%9Ctriple%2DA%E2%80%9D.

The line should read "Singapore is the only country in Asia with a AAA sovereign rating from all major rating agencies." 124.37.83.250 (talk) 02:45, 8 April 2021 (UTC)