• From the founding years of Singapore, hawkers of different races sold their food on the streets. In 1931, the British colonial government decided to issue licences to the hawkers. However, only 1,000 hawker licences were issued that year, as the objective was to reduce the number of hawkers on the streets.
• In 1950, the British colonial government realised that their hawker licence quota bore little effect on the number of hawkers. Hence, the Hawkers Inquiry Commission was formed, which recommended that licences be issued to all hawkers.
• Between 1968 and 1969, the Government carried out an island-wide registration of hawkers. Public hygiene inspectors were sent to all corners of the island daily to register the hawkers, and to record their names, business locations and types of food sold.
• The Hawkers Department’s Special Squad task force was formed in 1974, with an 18-month deadline to remove all illegal hawkers.
• From 1971, the Government started to build markets and food centres, equipped with basic facilities. A total of 54 hawker centres were built between 1974 and 1979 alone.
• Hawker centres sell a wide variety of food and drinks at affordable prices. In the past, the hawkers or their assistants would bring customers’ orders to their tables, but today it is mainly self-service.
• Currently, Singapore has more than 100 markets and hawker centres managed by the National Environment Agency (NEA), housing a total of about 13,400 hawker stalls as of 2022. There are also non-NEA managed hawker centres in Singapore, such as those managed by private organisations.
• On 16 December 2020, Hawker Culture in Singapore was inscribed onto the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Located at Jurong West Street 61, the hawker centre beside Pioneer Mall is set to officially open this Sunday (8 October). Three tray-return robots have been specially brought in to rove between the tables, making this hawker centre the first in Singapore to utilise tray-return robots. (Lianhe Wanbao, 5/10/2017)

街边型夜市 (Taiwan), 美食广场 (Hong Kong)

The word “hawker” in English refers to people who move around hawking their wares or food. In Singapore, however, the hawker is not itinerant but has a fixed stall located within a food centre.