Telok Blangah (, ta, தெலுக் பிளாங்கா) is a subzone region and housing estate located in the area behind

Keppel Harbour Keppel Harbour (; ms, Pelabuhan Keppel), also called the Keppel Channel and formerly New Harbour, is a stretch of water in Singapore between the mainland and the southern islands of Pulau Brani and Sentosa (formerly Pulau Blakang Mati). Its nat ...

Bukit Merah Bukit Merah, also known as Redhill, is a planning area and new town situated in the southernmost part of the Central Region of Singapore. the planning area borders Tanglin to the north, Queenstown to the west and the Downtown Core, Outram an ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. ''Teluk Blanga'' is the district between Pasir Panjang and Tanjong Pagar.

Name

The region is named after the

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

. ''Telok Blangah'' ( Jawi: تلوق بلڠه) is a Malay compound of '' blanga'' "a type of cooking pot" and ''telok'' "bay" and so literally means "cooking pot bay", so named on account of its shape. In the olden maps, Telok Blangah's name spelling was written as Teluk Blanga, Teluk Belanga and Teluk Blangah. ''Teluk Blanga'' is known as ''sit lat mng'' in

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

, meaning "Singapore gate" or "north west gate".

History

Historically, this area is as old as the thirteenth century city of

Temasek Temasek (also spelt Temasik) is an early recorded name of a settlement on the site of modern Singapore. The name appears in early Malay and Javanese literature, and it is also recorded in Yuan and Ming Chinese documents as ''Danmaxi'' ( or ...

. The area is rich with Malay aristocratic history of past royal events. According to the

Malay Annals The ''Malay Annals'' ( Malay: ''Sejarah Melayu'', Jawi: سجاره ملايو), originally titled ''Sulalatus Salatin'' (''Genealogy of Kings''), is a literary work that gives a romanticised history of the origin, evolution and demise of the g ...

, Sang Nila Utama's boat ran into a storm and he threw everything overboard, including his crown before landing just off Telok Blangah beach. The area gained prominence again during the British period when

Sir Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...

in 1823 assigned Temenggong Abdul Rahman (died 1825) and his followers of land for their residence and a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a bu ...

. The area flourished under Temenggong Abdul Rahman because of his

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

over the gutta percha trade. Temenggong Abdul Rahman's eldest son, Tun Haji Abdullah, informally took over as Temenggong of Johor after his death in 1825, followed by his second son Daeng Ibrahim informally in 1833 and officially on 19 August 1841. In 1845, Telok Blangah Hill ( Malay: ''Bukit Telok Blangah'') was renamed to Mount Faber after Captain

Charles Edward Faber Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

. Following Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim’s death in 1862, his first son Temenggong Abu Bakar succeed him and moved his

Istana ''Istana'' is an Indonesian and Malay word meaning " palace". Notable Istanas *Istana Alam Shah, the official palace of the Sultan of Selangor *Istana Besar, 19th- and early 20th-century residence of the Sultan of Johor *Istana Bogor, one of the p ...

to Tyersall. In 1885, when Maharaja Abu Bakar became the

Sultan of Johor The Sultan of Johor is a hereditary seat and the sovereign ruler of the Malaysian state of Johor. In the past, the sultan held absolute power over the state and was advised by a ''bendahara''. Currently, the role of ''bendahara'' has been tak ...

, he moved to

Johor Bahru Johor Bahru (), colloquially referred to as JB, is the capital city of the state of Johor, Malaysia. It is located at the southern end of Peninsular Malaysia,along the north bank of the Straits of Johor, opposite of the city-state Singapore. ...

. The former royal audience hall (now a mosque, Masjid Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim) and the Johor Royal Mausoleum still remain today at Telok Blangah Road, near VivoCity and Sentosa Gateway. The last to be buried was Ungku Modh. Khalif (or Khalid), the younger brother of Sultan Abu Bakar in 1900. Another Malay royal cemetery and

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...

nearby is Keramat Bukit Kasita at Bukit Purmei, which is the final resting place of the Riau-Lingga Royal Family, a split of the

Johor Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the northwest. Johor shares mariti ...

Royal Family. Telok Blangah Road was officially named in 1907. The sacred shrine of Puteri Raden Mas Ayu, a sixteenth-century Javanese princess, is located at Mount Faber Road, near the junction with Telok Blangah Road.

Other Landmarks

There are several century-old Chinese temples constructed to meet the spiritual and social needs of the Chinese immigrants who settled in the area around Telok Blangah in the late 1800s. Ban Siew San Kuan Imm Tong (萬壽山觀音堂) and Koon Seng Ting (堃成堂) were built in 1880 and managed to weather through more than 100 years at the same location. Both temples were proposed for conservation under the Draft Master Plan 2013 by Urban Redevelopment Authority. Another prominent old temple in the area will be Telok Blangah Ting Kong Beo (直落布蘭雅天公廟) which was built in 1923 or earlier.

References

*Victor R Savage, Brenda S A Yeoh (2003), ''Toponymics - A Study of Singapore Street Names'', Eastern Universities Press, {{Coord missing, Singapore Places in Singapore Bukit Merah