Chulia Street

Chulia Street
The UOB Plaza Towers as seen from Chulia Street.
OwnerLand Transport Authority (LTA)
Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)
Maintained byLTA
Nearest Mass Rapid Transit System station
Raffles Place MRT station
Other
Known forUOB Plaza
Chulia Street, Singapore
Chulia Street in April 2026.

Chulia Street is the name of a road in the Downtown Core area of Singapore that runs from an end of South Canal Road.

Ethymology

Chulia Street was formerly known as Kling Street but was renamed as Chulia Street after the Indian community in Singapore felt the word Kling was derogatory as a socially undesirable term referring exclusively to Indian unskilled labourers who were considered the lowest social class.

In 1921, Hafeezudin Sirajuddin Moonshi requested that the name of the road be changed to Chulia Street and was changed that same year.

History

Chulia street was part of a settlement of the Chulias, a group of Indian Muslim workers from South India who inhabited the area. It was a commercial hub for knife makers, as well as moneylender agencies. Aside from mercantility, there are also places of worship located along Chulia Street. There is a Chinese temple, Yueh Hai Ching Temple, as well as a mosque, Masjid Moulana Mohamed Ali. The latter is located underneath the UOB Plaza and was established there in 1994 to replace an older mosque affected by the demolition of the shophouses along Chulia Street.

It was also a popular tourist attraction due to the rows of two-story Indian shophouses on either side of the road, which were all demolished in the early 1980s to make way for the industrial business developments in the area. Chulia Street is no longer a tourist destination and is now part of the central business district of Singapore.

The current UOB Plaza and OCBC Centre were built along Chulia Street in the 1970s.

Transportation

The only form of public transportation for the road is via the Raffles Place MRT station, which has exits located across the road.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Chulia Street (Secondary Road)". www.streetdirectory.com. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  2. ↑ Cornelius, Vernon. "Chulia Street". Singapore Infopedia. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
  3. ↑ "Municipal Notice: Change of Name to Kling Street". The Straits Times. 1921-08-01. p. 16.
  4. ↑ "Supplement containing subsidiary legislation". The Straits Settlements Government Gazette. 60. 1921.
  5. 1 2 Peel, G.L. (31 October 2010). Rickshaw Reporter. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd. ISBN 9812616373.
  6. ↑ Raja Singam, S.D. (1939). Malayan Street Names: What They Mean and Whom They Commemorate (1st ed.). Ipoh, Perak: Mercantile Press. pp. 39–40.
  7. ↑ Singapore 150 Years (1st ed.). Singapore: Times Books International. 1982.
  8. ↑ Pan, Xingnong (1993). Chao qiao su yuan ji (Chu ban ed.). River Edge, N.J: Ba fang wen hua qi ye gong si. ISBN 978-1-879771-05-5.
  9. ↑ "Moulana Mohamed Ali Mosque reopens at Raffles Place". The Straits Times. 2015-04-10. ISSN 0585-3923. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  10. ↑ Ong, Tanya (2014-09-08). "S'pore's only underground mosque located beneath one of the tallest buildings in the CBD". Mothership. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  11. 1 2 3 Edwards, Norman; Keys, Peter (1988). Singapore: a Guide to Buildings, Streets, Places. Singapore: Times Books International. pp. 418–451. ISBN 9971652315.
  12. ↑ "DBS making climate adaptation a strategic priority, says its chief sustainability officer". The Straits Times. 2026-03-15. ISSN 0585-3923. Retrieved 2026-03-24.