Bishan New Town 4.81

Bishan, also known as either Bishan New Town or Bishan Town, is a planning area and matured residential town located at the northernmost portion of the Central Region of Singapore. Statistically, the area is ranked the 38th biggest in terms of geographical size and the 21st most populated planning area in the country. This however, makes Bishan ranked 15th in terms of population density. Apart from its boundary with the Central Water Catchment in the west, Bishan borders three other planning areas - Ang Mo Kio to the north, Toa Payoh to the south and Serangoon to the east.What is now Bishan today was once land that belonged to Kwong Wai Siew Peck San Theng, a cemetery that mainly served the Cantonese and Hakka communities of Singapore. Following the establishment of the cemetery in 1870, the first human settlements began to appear in the area, forming what eventually became Kampong San Teng. During the Battle of Singapore in 1942, Peck San Theng was the site of a fierce firefight between the invading Japanese forces and the defending British. The subsequent fall of the island to the Japanese that same year eventually made Peck San Theng a place of refuge for most of the Singapore population. In 1973, Peck San Theng stopped accepting burials and six years later following a government lease, land was acquired for development. Graves were then exhumed between 1982 and 1984 paving the way for the construction of Bishan New Town in 1983. Today, Peck San Theng still remains in operation, although it had since been converted into a columbarium.