Paya Lebar is an area in the central-eastern part of
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
. It is served by
Paya Lebar StationThe Paya Lebar MRT Station ' is a Mass Rapid Transit interchange station on the East West Line and on the future Circle Line in Singapore. It's livery is light blue...
, on the
East West LineThe East West MRT Line was the second Mass Rapid Transit line in Singapore to be built. The line is currently 49.2 km long with 31 stations, and operated by SMRT Corporation...
of Singapore's
Mass Rapid TransitThe Mass Rapid Transit or MRT is a rapid transit system that forms the backbone of the railway system in Singapore, spanning the entire city-state. The initial section of the MRT, between Yio Chu Kang Station and Toa Payoh Station, opened in 1987 establishing itself as the second-oldest metro...
system. It is also an
urban planning areaSingapore is currently divided into 55 urban planning areas by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, organised into five regions. A Development Guide Plan is then drawn up for each planning area, providing for detailed planning guidelines for every individual plot of land throughout the country.The...
.
Paya Lebar is an area in the central-eastern part of
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
. It is served by
Paya Lebar StationThe Paya Lebar MRT Station ' is a Mass Rapid Transit interchange station on the East West Line and on the future Circle Line in Singapore. It's livery is light blue...
, on the
East West LineThe East West MRT Line was the second Mass Rapid Transit line in Singapore to be built. The line is currently 49.2 km long with 31 stations, and operated by SMRT Corporation...
of Singapore's
Mass Rapid TransitThe Mass Rapid Transit or MRT is a rapid transit system that forms the backbone of the railway system in Singapore, spanning the entire city-state. The initial section of the MRT, between Yio Chu Kang Station and Toa Payoh Station, opened in 1987 establishing itself as the second-oldest metro...
system. It is also an
urban planning areaSingapore is currently divided into 55 urban planning areas by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, organised into five regions. A Development Guide Plan is then drawn up for each planning area, providing for detailed planning guidelines for every individual plot of land throughout the country.The...
.
Etymology and history
Paya Lebar was a large,
swampA swamp is a wetland featuring temporary or permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a substantial number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types...
y area close to the
Kallang RiverThe Kallang River flows for 10 kilometres from the Lower Peirce Reservoir to the coast at Nicoll Highway, making it the longest river in Singapore...
, hence its name.
Paya means "swamp" and
lebar means "wide" in
MalayMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
. This was an extensive and notorious squatter district, whose inhabitants engage in cultivating
marketA market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things...
produce, including
pigPigs are a genus of even-toed ungulates within the family Suidae. The name hog most commonly refers to the domestic pig in everyday parlance, but technically encompasses several distinct species, including the wild boar...
and
poultryPoultry is the category of domesticated birds that people keep for the purpose of collecting their eggs, or killing for their meat and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as...
rearing.
One of the first persons to colonise this area was Richard Owen Norris (died 1905), who bought part of the area in 1865 and lived here with his family.
The admiralty
wireless stationThe term base station can be used in the context of land surveying, wireless computer networking, and wireless communications.-Land surveying:...
was in this district in 1915.
In 1955, Singapore International Airport (commonly referred to as "Paya Lebar Airport") was opened and became the area's chief
landmarkThis is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories: natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares, and so forth...
, along with a number of housing estates, schools and factories.
Paya Lebar Street was officially named in 1958, while Paya Lebar Way was named in 1972.