Old Photos Of Singapore Before It Became A Gleaming Metropolis

The city-state's 5 million people, crammed into an area barely larger than Chicago, generate the 6th-highest GDP in the world.

It has the highest percentage of millionaire households in the world, according to BCG, and is known for its sophisticated investing environment (though some allege it is also a tax haven).

It wasn't always so.

Click here to see old images of Singapore >

For years, Singapore was a sleepy colonial backwater of the British Empire. Even after it became independent, many believed it literally would cease to exist as a functioning community.

Lee Kuan Yew, regarded today as the founder of modern Singapore, had this to say about growing up there:

The population was less than a million and most of Singapore was covered by mangrove swamps, rubber plantations, and secondary forest because rubber had failed, and forests around Mandai/Bukit Timah took its place.

When he took control of the country in the '60s, not very much had changed.

He had to launch a campaign to help Singapore "survive and prosper."

Thanks to images taken by Flickr user Yin Biao Boey, annotated by us with contemporary New York Times reports, we take you back to this uncertain era in the country's history.