Singapore finally has its own UNESCO World Heritage site, joining the ranks of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Cambodia’s Angkor Wat. The 156-year-old Botanic Gardens was officially listed earlier this month and now joins a list of over 1,000 heritage sites around the world, including fellow newly-inscribed sites like the Baekje Historic Areas (Republic of Korea), the Tusi sites (China) and the Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountains (Mongolia).
Singapore’s Botanic Gardens is the first and only tropical botanical garden in Asia on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The Gardens, created in 1859, showcases the evolution of British tropical colonial tropical botanic garden that has evolved to become an important centre for plant research and conservation. It also contains a rich variety of historic features and buildings. The other tropical garden is the Vallee de Mai in Seychelles, home to rare palms and the endangered black parrot.
During the bid for Singapore to be listed, it was lauded for its “vast botanical values” and “excellent landscape design”. For sure, it’s a popular place for weekend picnics and the occasional free outdoor concert, and remains a popular place for joggers. It’s even got themed mini-gardens like the Evolution Garden which takes you back to scenes of Jurassic World.
Now that it’s an official UNESCO site, we’re pretty sure there’d be a surge in Instagram posts – both from selfie-lovers as well as tourists who will now add another ‘garden’ on their to-go list when they visit our little island.
