| Singapore is an island nation located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometers (85 miles) north of the Equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia\'s Riau Islands. At 704.0 kmē (272 square miles), it is one of the few remaining city-states in the world and the smallest country in Southeast Asia.
When the main island was colonized by the British East India Company in 1819, it contained a fishing village sparsely populated by indigenous Malays and Orang Lauts at the mouth of the Singapore River. The British used the position as a strategic trading outpost along the spice route.[1] It became one of the most important commercial and military centres of the British Empire, and the site in 1942 of what Winston Churchill called \"Britain\'s biggest defeat\" at the hands of the Japanese.[citation needed] Occupied by the Japanese Empire during World War II, it reverted to British rule in 1945 and was later part of the merger which established Malaysia in 1963. Two years later it left the federation and became an independent republic on August 9, 1965. The new republic was admitted to the United Nations on September 21 that same year.
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