On the theme of insects, specifically bees, I come to think of the beehives that they live in made with hexagon-shaped honeycombs. This has then led me to think about hex maps. A hex map is commonly seen as a map of the USA. You can read more about it here. As of the writing of this post, I am unable to find an official hex map for Singapore. Hence, I have decided to do one as shown above.
I have chosen to use planning areas as my way of dividing Singapore geographically in hexagons seeing as Singapore is a small country with no states. I have considered other methods like regions of Singapore that will only create 5 areas. 5 areas are much less than the 55 planning areas when it comes to data granularity. However, 55 is a bit too much. The hex map I have tried to come out with has places which are geographically incorrect when compared to the real map (credit to Timothy Tye for sharing this map marked by polygons online). Other methods I have considered include Administrative and Electoral Divisions. Perhaps, it may be used for electoral datasets, but considering that the electoral boundaries change at times during the general elections, planning areas seem to be a better choice. The planning areas are used for medium and long-term planning by the Singapore government.
I do hope that an official version can be developed for the map of Singapore.
All in all, creating a hex map for Singapore is not easy, especially when the small country is divided into 55 planning areas which makes it hard to place accurately or at least accurately in a hex map format.