Pulau is the Malay word for "Island", thus here we have the island of Ubin located off the North Eastern shore of Mainland Singapore. Pulau Ubin is shaped like a boomerang, about 8 km at its greatest length while its breadth varies from 1.3 to 1.7 km. Essentially, Ubin is a large granite crop rising from the sea to a maximum height of 75m.The island is a rich resource of granite. The Malay people who came to the region called it Pulau Batu Ubin (Granite Stone Island).

Over time the forests thickly covered much of Ubin while mangroves flourished at the edges of the island and all along the creeks and rivers. One can imagine that the larger mammals like elephant, tiger, leopard and deer, mammals that were still found in Singapore in the last century, roamed Ubin freely then. They shared the jungle habitat with birds like the Red Jungle Fowl, the colourful ancestor to our domestic chicken and the Mangrove Blue Flycatcher.  Both these are now endangered species.

But there is evidence that mammals, fish and birds may well have been hunted by stone-age Man on Ubin. Four Neolithic stone tools of the 'round axe-daze' type have been found. Quartz flakes were also found. Then, in a survey done in 1987, porcelains and stoneware shards were collected on the surface around Kampung Maman. One can conclude that other civilisations once thrived where Ubin now is.

The thickly forested core of Ubin would have been left undisturbed until this present civilisation settled in great numbers and cleared much of the forest to plant rubber, coconut and other fruit trees and began commercial quarrying on a large scale; there were as many as five active quarries on Ubin in the earlier part of this century.

But long before this, the Malays on the island were already hewing the granite and using them to make stone tombs and grinders.  Many small family or cottage industries grew up.

Since the middle of the last century, granite mining has supported settlers and numerous cottage industries. You can find a number of abandoned granite quarries filled up with water. Still, about 200 inhabitants call Ubin their home, making a living off the land or relying on weekend visitors to support a quiet tourist trade.

In recent years stories about Ubin have always described the island as a 'Sleepy Hollow', a place where time has stood still.  When Goh Chok Tong (then deputy PM), toured the island in 1990 he suggested that it be kept as it is... "an adventure island" which would retain Ubin's "rugged and undeveloped character".