There used to be an island called Pulau Saigon right smack in the middle of the Singapore River.

But the island no longer exists today. Land reclamation has seen it become part of the mainland.

Pulau Saigon is not the only instance of an island that once existed in the middle of a river in Singapore though.

According to Infopedia, there was once an island called Pulau Gelang (or Geylang Island) right smack in the middle of the Geylang River.

Back when Geylang was Gaylang

So, we did some digging and found that there was indeed an island in the Geylang River, back when Geylang was known as Gaylang in the 1800s. The island is near a place known as Gaylang Village.

The maps below are from 1846, some 27 years after Singapore was founded by Stamford Raffles.

It's a pretty sizeable chunk of land right smack in the middle of the Geylang River it seems.

[related_story]

The island was joined to the mainland through reclamation works and Infopedia says that the island had disappeared in an 1849 map and the area where the island was, had become a coconut plantation.

We couldn't locate it on an 1849 map, but here's one in 1855 that no longer shows the island.

In the present day

So, you might be wondering where was this island in relation to the present day, so here it is.

It should be somewhere around the City Plaza area.

And here's what the area looks like presently on the ground.

We may never know what Pulau Geylang was like in the 1800s, but it seems like a pretty cool feature of the old Geylang landscape.

Top image adapted from NAS.

Here are some totally unrelated but equally interesting stories:

There are tons of GrabRewards points you haven’t been using

These stories of the people from the Tampines Round Market will warm your heart

​