Port of Singapore: Hornbill Casques, Raffles' Free Port and Driverless Tuas

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In the late 13th century the kingdom of Singapura sat on the north bank of the Singapore River, the only port in the southern Strait of Malacca. Chinese trader Wang Dayuan's 1349 account lists exports of raw cotton, laka wood and hornbill casques, and a 1984 excavation at Fort Canning Hill led by John Miksic uncovered 14th-century porcelain and glassware. The rise of the Malacca Sultanate sidelined the port, and an Acehnese naval force destroyed it in the early 17th century, leaving the island largely abandoned for about 200 years. In 1819 Stamford Raffles saw the deep, sheltered waters of Keppel Harbour, reclaimed riverbank land for Chinese and English traders and declared a free port, pulling the Chinese junk trade away from Dutch Batavia by the 1830s.

Singapore became a coaling station for steamships in the 1840s and later a staple port that processed tin, rubber and crude oil from British Malaya. Separation from Malaysia in 1965 cost it that hinterland, so it turned to export manufacturing, oil refining and wafer fabrication. In 2024 it handled 41.1 million TEUs, about 90% of them transshipment, and in 2025 it sold 56.77 million tons of marine fuel and logged a record 3.22 billion gross tons of vessel arrivals. It is now closing its city terminals by 2027 and Pasir Panjang by 2040 to consolidate operations at Tuas.

• After Malacca's rise, Singapore was reduced to cutting blackwood that Chinese traders turned into furniture.
• Raffles' layout put Chinese trading houses on the lower river and English warehouses upriver to match their different trading seasons.
• Tuas opened in September 2022 with three berths, reached 11 by early 2025 and is on track for 18 by 2027.
• Fully built, Tuas will be twice the size of Ang Mo Kio town, with 26 kilometers of deep-water berths.
• Over 1,000 battery-powered driverless vehicles and about 1,000 automated yard cranes move containers without drivers.