The Merlion
Park

The Merlion fountain, Singapore | © Ivan Nesterov / Alamy Stock Photo
The 8.6m-tall Merlion statue that sits at the mouth of the Singapore River spouting water into Marina Bay is a popular tourist hotspot despite its surprising banal origins. This ‘mythical creature’ was created in 1972 as a logo for the Singapore Tourism Board, and as an amalgamation of Singapore’s heritage. The Lion reference draws from ‘Singapura’, an old name for Singapore meaning ‘Lion City’, while the fish half is a callback to Singapore’s early days as a fishing village then known as ‘Temasek’ or ‘Sea Town’. Detractors often compare the Merlion to the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen – the statue is a lot smaller than you might imagine from the photos and perpetually swarmed with way too many tourists to be worth the effort to visit. There are actually seven official Merlion statues located around Singapore – the largest one is on Sentosa and a tower that you can climb. That version is often described as rather murderous looking because of the lasers that shoot out of its eyes.