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Bukit Merah

English	Bukit Merah
Chinese	红山
(Pinyin	Hóngshān)
Malay	Bukit Merah
Tamil	புகித் மைராஹ்

Skyline of Bukit Merah

Bukit Merah is a hill in Singapore. Previously, it was a much larger hill that was situated at the present site of Henderson housing estate, which lies opposite the Delta Sports Complex. There was a Chinese cemetery on the reverse side of the hill. The present Henderson Secondary School is also located in this area. The hill was trimmed to its current state in 1973 with the surrounding kampong being demolished to make way to the current Redhill Close. The nearest MRT station is Redhill. The area surrounding this hill forms the Bukit Merah Planning Area, one of the 55 urban planning areas under the Urban Redevelopment Authority, in the Central Region.

In Malay, Bukit Merah means "red hill" (bukit is Malay for "hill", while merah means "red". The area, including the MRT station located here, is often referred to as Redhill.

According to a Malay legend, a mysterious bloody event lies behind the name. In early times when the island was populated by fishing villages, the fishermen were often threatened by swordfish attacks. A young boy who lived on the hill proposed a possible solution to the Sultan: Build a fence of banana tree trunks to ward off the swordfish. This was done, and the attacking swordfish were stuck in the tree trunks, thus proving the boy right. The battle with the swordfish was won. The Sultan, however, alarmed by the boy's intelligence, ordered his soldiers to kill the boy. While four soldiers were making their way up to the hill one night to kill the boy, they saw a fountain mysteriously spouting blood from the ground. The mysterious incident was conjured by a woman with long hair that appeared before the four soldiers. The soldiers were so terrified by the sight that they did not accomplish their death mission.

Another version of the legend has it that the boy was indeed killed, and his blood spilled down the hill and dyed the soil red.

From an objective viewpoint, the area got its red-orange colouring due to the lateritic soils in the area, which when exposed without vegetation makes a striking impression of a "blood soaked" landscape.

The Mass Rapid Transit station, Redhill MRT Station which serves the immediate area of Bukit Merah, part of Singapore's transport system is named after the translation of Bukit Merah, that is again, red hill.

The Bukit Merah Bus Interchange (红山巴士转换站) serves the Bukit Merah New Town and the interchange which is located at Bukit Merah Central is nearer to the Henderson Road junction. There are a few SMRT buses that call at the interchange as it is operated by SBS Transit.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Singapore#Bukit Merah

• Legend of Bukit Merah at the Singapore Museum website. [1]

• Victor R Savage, Brenda S A Yeoh (2003), Toponymics - A Study of Singapore Street Names, Eastern Universities Press, ISBN 981-210-205-1