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National Library Board
Story Maps

Fort Canning

15 December 2021

Uncover the hidden stories of Fort Canning

A large white colonial-style building with trees and grass, text reads "FORT CANNING" and "START YOUR JOURNEY."

Fort Canning Hill, formerly known as Bukit Larangan (Malay for “Forbidden Hill”) and Government Hill, is one of the most historic landmarks in Singapore. It housed many facilities and buildings including a military command centre and the Governor’s House. It also bore witness to many key historic events particularly Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival’s crucial decision to surrender to the Japanese. Today, the hill is known to many as Fort Canning Park.

Take a trip back in time in this story map to learn more about the history of the iconic buildings and sites on this important hill.

View the story map in full screen (opens in new tab) or on your mobile device by scanning the QR code below.

A QR code with the logo "GO.gov.sg" in the center.
Notes

  1. This story map does not show a comprehensive coverage of the historic buildings and sites found on Fort Canning Hill.

  2. The base map used in this story map is the Singapore Land Authority's OneMap (opens in new tab).

  3. This story map used related Infopedia articles and other NLB digitised resources in NL Online (opens in new tab), BiblioAsia (opens in new tab), and Roots (opens in new tab) as references. It also consulted the following books: Singapore Street Names: A Study of Toponymics (opens in new tab) (2013), Fort Canning Hill: Exploring Singapore's Heritage and Nature (opens in new tab) (2013), What’s in the Name?: How the Streets and Villages in Singapore Got Their Names (opens in new tab) (2018), Ray Tyers’ Singapore: Then & Now (opens in new tab) (2018), Singapore: A Guide to Buildings, Streets, Places (opens in new tab) (1988), In Granite and Chunam: The National Monuments of Singapore (opens in new tab) (1996), and Singapore: A Pictorial History 1819-2000 (opens in new tab) (1999).

Image Credit

Photo by Matt Kieffer via Flickr (opens in new tab) (CC BY-SA 2.0)