Jackson Plan

The Jackson Plan of 1822, also known as the "Plan of the Town of Singapore", was an urban plan for Singapore drawn up to maintain some order in the urban development of the fledgling but thriving colony founded just three years earlier. It was named after Lieutenant Philip Jackson, the colony's engineer and land surveyor tasked to oversee its physical development.

Originally, William Farquhar who had governed Singapore from 1819 until 1823 had allowed the colony to flourish under the sheer volume of trade that passed through her port, but had not organised the colony, and thus it grew haphazardly. Upon his return in October 1822, the colony's founder, Sir Stamford Raffles, was displeased by the disorderliness, and formed a town Committee led by Lieutenant Jackson to revise the layout plan of the city. The Jackson Plan was thus formulated, created a plan of Singapore that would divide it into ethnic functional subdivisions and lay the colony out in a grid pattern. Ethnic residential areas were to be segregated into four areas.