Ang Mo Kio 5.42

Ang Mo Kio is one of the newly developed towns located in the northern side of Bishan, in the heart of Singapore.

There are several striking features of Ang Mo Kio that include HDB housing blocks, hawker centers and wet markets. Lee Hsien Loong, the Prime Minister of Singapore is the Parliamentary member for the Ang Mo Kio constituency. Ang Mo Kio Planning Area is an urban planning division located in this area.

The region’s name matches with one of the phrases of Hokkien dialect that is either interpreted as "Bridge of the Caucasian" or the "Red Tomato". The Caucasian mentioned here could be a lady of British origin, Lady Jennifer Windsor. She was the better half of a rich merchant, Lord Windsor who was the owner of a gigantic estate prior to the Second World War. The name of the town may have been coined by a renowned civil engineer of Britain, Mr. John Turnbull Thomson who played a pivotal role in developing the infrastructure of Singapore in the latter half of the 19th century. The present city of Ang Mo Kio was very sparsely populated in the nineteenth century. The majority of the city was marked as Ang Mo Kio Forest Reserve with numerous plantation estates. Settlements emerged as a result of the rubber boom in and around the region in the 20th century.

Ang Mo Kio was the seventh town to be developed in Singapore. It’s a modern town with several cultural and community facilities, commercial spaces that serve more than 200,000 residents. The town was the first one to be developed on metric designs. Ang Mo Kio has seven neighborhoods present in a radial fashion with the central region of the town set between a couples of town gardens situated on natural hillocks. A majority of the flats are in 12-storey or 25-storey long blocks. An enormous process of renewal is underway.

The town has a network of interconnected roads known as “Avenues”. The Central Expressway allows the town to be connected to the other parts of the island. Ang Mo Kio New Town was the first region that introduced a unique road numbering system which was soon replicated in the neighboring areas. A multi-modal public transport system exists in the region. There are two major Mass Rapid Transit stations that play a key role in the transport system of the town. They are the Ang Mo Kio MRT Station and Yio Chu Kang MRT Station.

Numerous preschools and childcare centres are present along with primary and secondary schools to provide the best education to the residents of Ang Mo Kio. Ang Mo Kio offers its residents all the vital services like legal, Administrative, religious, medical and other social services. The Ang Mo Kio Thye Hua Kwan Hospital is one of the main community hospitals that offer health care facilities. Several recreational faculties are present around the hilly areas of the town around the Mayflower estate which are enjoyed by residents of both the estates of Bishan and Ang Mo Kio.