Port cities and hinterlands: A comparative study of Singapore and Calcutta

This paper analyses the evolution of Singapore and Calcutta from colonial port cities to a post-colonial city-state and a city within a state, respectively. It will examine how the historical trajectories of these cities were determined and complicated by their maritime character and evolving relations with their respective hinterlands. Singapore had a fluid (literally and metaphorically) hinterland and its economic, social and cultural orientations were defined by the maritime trade that it conducted and the networks that were developed as a result of its commercial activities. The modern state of Singapore, which embraces the world as its ‘hinterland’, remains in essence a port city – subjected to global flows, multi-cultural influences and fully integrated with and dependent on regional and global commercial networks. Calcutta's position as port city, too, grew out of empire and imperial trade, but unlike Singapore, it had a clearly defined and dominant hinterland – Bengal. Its identity as a Bengali city is therefore unmistakable and it clearly shares in the strengths and weaknesses of its immediate social, economic and political hinterland, especially in its post-colonial incarnation, when it shifted from being an imperial city to a regional city.