Punggol

Punggol (Chinese: 榜鹅, Tamil: பொங்கோல்), officially Punggol New Town, is an urban planning area and residential town situated on Tanjong Punggol in the North-East Region of Singapore. The town directly borders Sengkang to the south and shares riverine boundaries with the district of Seletar to the west and the town of Pasir Ris to the east. Bounding the town to the north and north-east is the Straits of Johor, with Coney Island included as a part of the town's territory.

Under the Punggol 21 initiative, plans to turn the area into a new residential town was announced in 1996 and development of the town started in 1998. Due to the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the financial troubles within the construction industry in 2003, the plan did not fully materialize. In 2007, a new initiative, the Punggol 21-plus plan, was introduced to redevelop the area into a waterfront town.

Etymology

Punggol Point or Tanjong Punggol appears as Tanjong Rangon on Franklin and Jackson's 1828 map of Singapore. Punggol, also spelt as Ponggol, means "hurling sticks at the branches of fruit trees to bring them down to the ground" in Malay. It could also refer to a place where fruits and forest produce are offered wholesale and carried away. These possible names indicate that Punggol was a fruit growing district. The place is said to take its name from the river Sungei Ponggol.