Little India

Little India is the historic centre of Singapore's Indian community, a district of shophouses, temples and markets along Serangoon Road and Jalan Besar in the Rochor planning area, gazetted as a conservation area on 7 July 1989. Raffles never designated the area for Indians; the cattle and dairy trade drew Indian settlers from the mid-1800s, and by the 1940s it was a commercial and residential district with a large Indian population. Serangoon Road, its main street, appears on Lieutenant Jackson's map of 1828 as the road leading across the island.

Shophouse styles run from the Early style of 1840 to 1900 through to Art Deco, and many still hold goldsmiths, sari shops, garland and sweet stalls and Indian restaurants alongside cafés and souvenir shops. Tekka Centre on Buffalo Road combines a wet market, a food centre and textile shops; the original market of 1915 stood across the street and moved to its present site after 1982, and its name refers to the clumps of bamboo that once grew nearby. Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, dedicated to the goddess Kali, stands on Serangoon Road. Little India MRT station sits at the Bukit Timah Road end of the district, with Rochor and Jalan Besar stations also close by.