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1 - Istana Park
2 - Plaza Singaporea
3 - Peranakan Place
4 - Ngee Ann City
5 - U-Bahnstation Orchard
6 - Tangs Plaza
Orchard Road is Singapore's most famous grand avenue, about two and a half kilometers long, full of shopping centers, hotels, restaurants, discotheques, night clubs, and among them all several parks and green areas. Orchard Road is frequently compared to the Champs-Élysées in Paris or 5th Avenue in New York.
As early as the 1830s, there already was a path through the gambier (grown for tanning agents and pigments) and pepper plantations. A little later, nutmeg plantations and orchards predominated. There is also supposed to have been a Mr. Orchard who tended a garden at the corner of Scotts Road, which may have given the street its name.
Since the 1860s, numerous private homes and bungalows for well-to-do residents were erected on the hills along the valley through which the street runs. For example, in 1890, the King of Siam bought the plot of land on which the Thai Embassy is still located. But few such noble old buildings remain on Orchard Road; more common are the building complexes raised since the 1970s.
>> Biennale Tour
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