The diamond-shaped island of Singapore is 42km from east to west at its widest points, and 23km from north to south. The downtown city areas huddle at the southern tip of the diamond, radiating out from the mouth of the Singapore River . Two northeast-southwest roads form a dual spine to the central area, both of them traversing the river. One starts out as North Bridge Road , crosses the river and becomes South Bridge Road ; the other begins as Victoria Street , becomes Hill Street and skirts Chinatown as New Bridge Road .

At the very heart of the city, on the north bank, the Colonial District is home to a cluster of buildings that recall the days of early British rule - Parliament House, the cathedral, the Supreme Court, the Cricket Club and, most famously, Raffles Hotel. Moving west, the fringes of Fort Canning Park has several attractions, including Singapore's National Museum. From here, it's a five-minute stroll to the eastern end of Orchard Road , the main shopping area in the city. North from Fort Canning Park you soon enter Little India , whose main drag - Serangoon Road - is around fifteen minutes' walk from Raffles Hotel. Ten minutes southeast from Little India, Singapore's traditional Arab Quarter squats at the intersection of North Bridge Road and Arab Street.

South, across the river, the monolithic towers of the Financial District cast long shadows over Chinatown , whose row of shop-houses stretches for around one kilometre, as far as Cantonment Road. Singapore's World Trade Centre is a fifteen-minute walk southwest of the outskirts of Chinatown, and from there cable cars run across to Sentosa .

The rest of the island is crossed by expressways, of which the main ones are the east-west Pan Island Expressway and the East Coast Parkway/Ayer Rajah Expressway , both of which run from Changi to Jurong, and the Bukit Timah Expressway , which branches off north from the Pan Island Expressway at Bukit Timah new town, running north to Woodlands. At Woodlands, a causeway links Singapore with Malaysia.