Singapore vs Malaysia

Why people mix them up

Singapore was part of Malaysia from 1963 until it became an independent country in 1965. It sits just off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, connected to Malaysia by two road links across the narrow Johor Strait. Malay is spoken in both, both flags are red and white with a crescent, and many people assume Singapore is simply a Malaysian city. It is a separate city-state.

How to tell them apart

• Singapore is a single city-state on a small island and its surrounding islets; Malaysia is a federation of states covering part of the mainland and northern Borneo.
• Singapore's flag has a red band over a white band, with a white crescent and five white stars; Malaysia's has red and white stripes with a blue corner holding a yellow crescent and star.
• Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil; Malaysia's official language is Malay.
• Malaysia's capital is Kuala Lumpur; Singapore is its own capital.
• The currencies are the Singapore dollar and the Malaysian ringgit.
• Malaysia is hundreds of times larger in area; Singapore covers only a little over 700 km².

Memory hook

Singapore is the Small dot at the bottom of the peninsula with five stars; Malaysia is the long land above it with one star and many stripes.

On the map

Find the long Malay Peninsula reaching south from Thailand. At its very tip, just across a narrow strait, is a small diamond-shaped island: that is Singapore. Everything on the peninsula above it, from the Thai border down to that strait, is Peninsular Malaysia, and the northern part of Borneo across the sea is also Malaysia. If what you are tapping is barely a dot at the southern tip, it is Singapore.