"Singapore's policy of land reclamation started in the early 19th century with the founding of the British port and its shoreline has continued to expand ever since. The island's land area has grown from 581.5km² in 1960 to 734.3km² in 2022, an increase of over 25%. Land reclamation was once accomplished by taking soil from the inland hills and levelling them off and by dredging local sea sand, but when that didn't suffice, sand was imported on an enormous scale from neighbouring countries. According to a Reuters report, Singapore had imported 59 million tonnes of sand from Malaysia in 2018. Today, because of restrictions, the government is forced to look to more sustainable methods such as poldering, where dykes are built and land is drained and the territorial after all and change constantly, however the coastline of Singapore has gone through unusually large planned expansive shifts during the past sixty years."[sid:10]