Long Ya Men

Long Ya Men, meaning Dragon's Teeth Gate, was a granite rock outcrop that once stood at the western entrance to Keppel Harbour in Singapore, near present day Labrador Park, with a matching outcrop across the channel on Sentosa Island. The name came from the fourteenth century Chinese explorer Wang Dayuan, who compared the two hills flanking the strait to a dragon's teeth, and the formation, known locally as Batu Berlayar or Sailing Rock, served for centuries as a navigational landmark recorded in Chinese charts including those from Admiral Zheng He's voyages. In August 1848 the colonial surveyor John Turnbull Thomson demolished both outcrops to widen the harbor entrance for larger ships, and a symbolic replica was erected near the original site in 2005.