Kampong

A village or small settlement in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, or Indonesia, traditionally characterized by clustered homes and close-knit community ties.

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Malay house: A traditional house of the Malay world, commonly raised on stilts and built with timber and a pitched roof. Raised timber homes are a characteristic part of many traditional kampong landscapes.
Malay language: An Austronesian language spoken across Southeast Asia and used as a national language in several countries. Kampong comes from Malay and spread with the language across the region.
Kampung Admiralty: A public housing complex in Singapore that combines homes with health, childcare, and community facilities. Its design adapts kampong-style shared life to dense urban housing.
Singapore kampong clearance: The removal of many Singapore kampongs during urban redevelopment, especially from the 1960s onward. Clearance transformed settlement patterns and displaced longstanding communities.
Stilt house: A building elevated above ground or water on posts or piles. Elevation helps explain the houses found in flood-prone and humid kampong settings.
Austronesian peoples: Populations linked by related languages and histories across island Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Kampong settlements developed within the broader Austronesian region.
Kampung Improvement Programme: A Singapore public works programme that upgraded kampongs before their clearance and redevelopment. It shows how governments addressed infrastructure in traditional settlements.
Kampong spirit: An ideal of neighborly mutual aid and social cohesion associated with traditional kampong life. The phrase turns kampong community ties into a modern social value.
Rumah panggung: A raised traditional house found in parts of Indonesia and the wider Malay world. This regional house form gives a more specific example of kampong architecture.
Malay world: A cultural and historical region encompassing Malay-speaking communities across maritime Southeast Asia. The settlement form belongs to a cultural region extending beyond modern national borders.