Seletar

Seletar is an area of Singapore within its North-East Region. Seletar commonly refers to the areas south of Yishun and west of Sungei Punggol, covering Yio Chu Kang near the future Sengkang West Industrial Area (where there is Seletar Road), the Lower Seletar Reservoir and part of Upper Thomson (which is near to the Upper Seletar Reservoir).

The Seletar Planning Area, an urban planning zone under the Urban Redevelopment Authority, covers only the area between Lower Seletar Reservoir and Sungei Punggol, north of the Tampines Expressway, and the reclaimed islands of Pulau Punggol Barat and Pulau Punggol Timor.

Seletar is the site of the Seletar Airport. A new S$60 million Seletar Aerospace Park that spans 140 hectares will be built at Seletar, and is expected to be completed in 2018. The aerospace park will house industries specialising in aircraft maintenance and repair services.

Future plans to transform Seletar into one of the Singapore's regional centres along with Jurong East, Tampines and Woodlands.

Etymology
Seletar is probably one of the older local place names. The Malay word seletar refers to the aboriginal coastal dwellers (''orang Seletar River (which has since been dammed up to form the Lower Seletar Reservoir), hence the river's name. Later, Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor is said to have taken these people from Seletar to Sungai Pulai in southwest Johor.

History
Seletar, now Thomson Road, was first cut in the 1840s.

The British naval and air bases were in Seletar. The decision to build the base was made in 1921. Work started in 1927, with the mangrove swamps being filled in, hills removed and rubber trees cut down. The work was completed in the early 1930s. RAF Seletar was the first Royal Air Force base east of India and the first civilian airport in Singapore.

The Seletar Reservoir, now the Upper Seletar Reservoir, was built in 1935.