#2 Singapore

Singapore

The Republic of Singapore, a city-state of 63 islands that lie between Malaysia and Indonesia, is one of the world’s richest nations and acenter of global finance. Even though concrete, glass and steel have all but obliterated Singapore’s native rainforests, the small nation is earning a reputation as an emerging destination for environmental tourism. A study released in 2011 by The Economist and Siemens named Singapore the greenest city in Asia, and in 2013 Singapore is opening two major new ecological attractions. The first is the Gardens by the Bay, a diverse nature park that covers 250 acres of reclaimed land and won the building-of-the-year prize at the World Architecture Festival in 2012. The second is the new Marine Life Park, the world’s largest oceanarium, which features an aquarium with 49 different habitats and more than 800 species of marine life as well as a huge water park with six water slides and the 2,000-foot-long Adventure River.