The shophouses in Chinatown were built in an attempt to recreate the lifestyle that the Chinese immigrant was used to back home in China. The idea of Chinatown first came into being in Sir Stamford Raffles' 1822 layout plan for the Town of Singapore, which separated the various groups of immigrants into racial quarters for easy administration. The Chinese were assigned the southwestern part of the Singapore River, where they would be settled according to the provinces they belonged to in their homeland.
