Orchard Road

Orchard Road is Singapore's main shopping street, running for about 2.2 kilometres through the Orchard planning area from the junction of Tanglin Road and Orange Grove Road to Dhoby Ghaut. In the 1830s it was a country lane lined with nutmeg plantations, spice gardens, pepper farms and fruit orchards, and the name is thought to come either from those orchards or from a planter called Mr Orchid. Falling nutmeg prices left only a few plantations by 1860, and the land gave way to houses and bungalows. Singapore Cold Storage opened a grocery shop on the street in 1905, but large-scale building only began in the 1960s, and by the 1970s the road had become a shopping and hotel belt.

A walk along the road takes in a long run of malls, department stores and hotels on both sides. Three MRT stations sit on Orchard Road itself, Orchard, Somerset and Dhoby Ghaut, so most visitors arrive by train and walk between them. Each year the Orchard Road Business Association lights up the street for Christmas under the name Christmas on A Great Street; the 2025 edition ran from 8 November 2025 to 1 January 2026. The Singapore Botanic Gardens are less than a ten-minute walk from the Tanglin end, which makes an easy green break from the shops.