9 heritage cemeteries in Singapore

Hidden in plain sight, Yin Foh Kuan Cemetery goes by many names including Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Ancestral Hall, Shuang Long Shan Cemetery, Yin Foh Kuan Hakka Cemetery, and Holland Close Graveyard. The last remaining Hakka cemetery was established in 1887 for the Yin Fo Fui Kun clansmen to have a place for burial and ancestral worship. Surrounded by HDB flats and an MRT track, the rows of neatly arranged identical-looking tombstones – a far cry from the bold façades of most Chinese tombstones – make a striking juxtaposition of life and death. But despite this, the cemetery is rather peaceful.

Somewhere opposite VivoCity, rests some mysterious hidden tombs next to a jogging path up to Mount Faber. There are about 200 tombs in the patch of land and it has been left abandoned for years. It is said to be the graveyard of the former Kampong Marang and is one of the oldest Muslim burial grounds in Singapore – one of the tombstones even dates back to 1866.

On Pulau Ubin, there was a well-known Thai temple that used to draw crowds back in the day. And just before the Thai temple, off Jalan Wat Siam – or better known as Cemetery Road – lies the Kampong Bukit Coffee Chinese Cemetery where 35 Cantonese and Teochew residents were buried the 1970s. The cemetery is currently abandoned, with some tombstones damaged and worn off, and others covered vegetation. Residents are no longer allowed to bury the dead here.

More than 100,000 traditional Chinese graves, including the 600sqm grave of 19th-century business supremo Ong Sam Leong, are dotted among the trees in a beautiful 233ha rainforest. It’s not only the city’s largest cemetery but also one of its oldest, with the first grave dating back to 1833. Buried here are many Singaporeans whose names are literally part of the city today – names like Chew Boon Lay, Tan Kheam Hock and Chew Joo Chiat. 

The long MRT trip to Kranji affords plenty of time to contemplate the serried rows of public housing that represent one of the Singapore government’s greatest yet most perplexingly drab achievements. By contrast, the rows of 4,000 white gravestones at this peaceful hillside cemetery have a serene, if solemn beauty. Dominated by the huge, wing-like Singapore Memorial, and fronted by a Sir Edwin Lutyens-designed memorial stone, the site includes several monuments for servicemen massacred in the early days of the Japanese Occupation and one for those lying in ‘unmaintainable graves’ elsewhere in South-east Asia. The inscriptions tell countless tales of death and sacrifice, and you can easily spend an hour piecing together a picture of the British Empire in all its diversity. You can also find the tombs of the first two presidents of Singapore here.

The largest burial area reserved for the Muslim community can be found along Jalan Bahar and Lim Chu Kang Road. It consists of two cemeteries known as Pusara Aman Cemetery and Pusara Abadi Cemetery. Out of the two, Pusara Aman Cemetery is the older one, with a mosque built at its edge in 1972. It's also the resting place of Zubir Said, the celebrated composer behind the national anthem Majulah Singapura. Next door, the newer Pusara Abadi Cemetery is where the Muslimes exhumed from the defunct Bidadari Cemetery are interred to rest. Every year, prior to Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the graves within the two cemeteries are cleared of weeds and debris to make way for the annual customary visits.