District 24 · Outside Central Region
Tengah · Lim Chu Kang
Singapore's first Forest Town... a brand-new, car-lite, green estate rising on the western frontier.
Image: Tengah Forest Town · Sgwikicontributor · CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)
The History
A frontier opened for Singapore's next town.
For most of Singapore's modern history, this western corner stayed rural and restricted. Lim Chu Kang remained a landscape of farms, plant nurseries, cemeteries and military training grounds — one of the last working countrysides on the island. Tengah, too, was long a military area, closed off and forested.
That made District 24 the natural site for Singapore's next great housing project. Planning for a new town at Tengah began in 2016, the first homes were launched in 2018, and in 2023 the first residents collected their keys — making Tengah the first all-new HDB town to be built since Punggol two decades earlier. The forest that once kept the area closed has become the organising idea of the town itself.
What's Changing
A whole town, built from a blank canvas.
Tengah is being built as Singapore's first "Forest Town" — a green, smart and sustainable estate planned around a five-kilometre Forest Corridor and a network of parks. Its centrepiece is Singapore's first car-free town centre, where roads run beneath the ground to free the surface for walking, cycling and recreation.
More than 14,000 flats have already been completed across the town's districts, on the way to a planned 30,000 public homes and around 42,000 in total, with the estate expected to be fully built by the early 2030s. The Tengah Community Club and the first neighbourhood centre have opened, the Jurong Region Line will serve the town, and a new general hospital is planned for the catchment — a complete town taking shape from a blank canvas.
Why Live Here
Four reasons District 24 is one to watch.
A brand-new Forest Town
Tengah is Singapore's newest HDB town, designed from scratch around greenery and sustainability.
Car-lite, walkable living
A car-free town centre and a five-kilometre Forest Corridor put walking, cycling and nature first.
Smart and green homes
Tengah is planned with smart-town technology and a strong environmental focus throughout.
Growing connectivity
The Jurong Region Line and new amenities are steadily linking the young town to the rest of the west.