I am very glad to ba a part of this trail. I have been staying in Toa Payoh around 3 years and i really love this place as here has the facilities that can fulfill my daily needs.I was delighted when i learnt that i need to writ about Toa Payoh where i am living becouse i want more people to understanding the place better.

Toa Payoh is a Hokkien language reference to "big swamp" (toa is "big" and payoh means "swamp"). The Malay word for swamp is paya. The reference indicates the large swampy area that preceded the later development of Chinese market gardens in this area. It is the Chinese quivalent of Paya Lebar, i.e. big swamp land. To older generation Chinese, Toa Payoh is known as ang change shan (or anxiangshan) or "burial hill" because of the cemetery located in the area.

J.T. Thomson, a government surveyor, refers to Toa Payoh in his 1849 agricultural report as Toah Pyoh Lye and Toah Pyoh. Whampoa or Hoo Ah Kay had an orange garden here that Johnson visited. The neglected garden which Whampoa had bought was converted into a tasteful "bel-retiro" with its avenues, front-orchard, hanging gardens, Dutch walls, bamboos and orange trees, shrubs, stags and peafowls, its aviary and menagerie and artificial curiosities of horticulture.

Toa Payoh was once an extensive and notorious squatter district. Most squatters were engaged in farming and rearing pigs. The others were hawkers, factory workers, mechanics or domestic helpers.

The squatters started moving out in 1962 as a result of increased compensation rates and other practical inducements offered by the Government. Clearance work was able to commence and the redevelopment started in early 1964. The Toa Payoh New Town, HDB's second satellite town, was built in 1970. The layout of the new town follows urban planning principles of the time. The housing estate is self-contained and has a town centre acting as a focal point for the shopping and entertainment needs of the residents.
Industrial developments were also built within the town to provide residents with job opportunities close to home while schools were built within the neighbourhoods.The town centre was the firstprototype in Singapore. It is surrounded by separated neighbourhoods, each with its own shopping amenities and community centres, well served by a network of vehicular roads and generous open space separating them. The result, as in the English new towns of the 1950s, is that residents tend less to travel to the main town centre but rather to shop within their neighbourhood; if they travel, they go to Orchard Road or the town area via the MRT system, at the Toa Payoh MRT Station and the Braddell MRT Station, or public bus services at Toa Payoh Bus Interchange.

Nevertheless, with time, the Toa Payoh Town Centre has become increasingly popular. It has a busy atmosphere because, as with many shopping malls of the time, all commercial activities are concentrated along a single mall with high point blocks on either side and major department stores at each end. The shopping mall is actually L-shaped and there are two plazas, one with a branch library and cinema, the other with an area office and a post office. Each plaza has a department store at either end. The commercial development, HDB Hub, located at the Toa Payoh Town Centre was completed in 2002. The Housing and Development Board relocated its headquarters from its premises at Bukit Merah to the HDB Hub on 10 June 2002.

The HDB Hub comprises two wings, an atrium, four commercial building blocks, a leisure and learning centre and a three-storey basement parking lot. The building also accommodates Singapore's first fully air-conditioned Toa Payoh Bus Interchange and integrates it with the existing Toa Payoh MRT Station.
Another landmark of Toa Payoh is the facility of Royal Philips Electronics (the Dutch multinational making medical and electronics equipment). Philips established an extensive facility, parts of which are now owned by Jabil and NXP. The facility has been used by Philips for developing, amongst others, televisions and DVD players for years.

Toa Payoh Centre is always the best choice for my friends and me to sit down have a good chat after school.We love to have our dinner at KFC and talking about the event that happen in school,and we share the happyness and sadness together.Alought i am not a local, i always see Toa Payoh as my home as here give me the feeling of home and the caring that i have from my teachers and classmates in school..

Last but not least, i hope the information that i have provided is helpful for you to have a better understanding of Toa Payoh:)