Singapore's six MRT lines, ranked by how hard they are to type
The shortest line is the North East Line at 164 keys. The longest to type is the Circle Line at 344, even though the Downtown Line has more stations.
October 5, 2026 · 1 min read
HelloSubway has six Singapore lines: the North South, East West, North East, Circle, Downtown and Thomson-East Coast Lines. We counted the keys needed to type each line once, using the English station names with their spaces. The level (Lv) is relative within each city, so Lv 4 in Singapore means the heavier end of Singapore, not the same as Lv 4 in New York.
The ranking
The North East Line has 17 stations and needs 164 keys, level 1. The North South Line has 27 stations and 248 keys, level 2. The Thomson-East Coast Line has 27 stations and 287 keys, and the East West Line has 33 stations and 302, both level 3. The Downtown Line has 35 stations and 336 keys, and the Circle Line has 33 stations and 344, both level 4.
Why the Circle Line is harder than the Downtown Line
The Downtown Line has two more stations, but its names are short: Ubi, Hume, Expo and Bugis. The Circle Line has Prince Edward Road, Cantonment, Bartley and Telok Blangah. Prince Edward Road, at 18 keys, is tied with Gardens by the Bay as the longest name in Singapore. The Circle Line's loop is also typed in full, with Promenade visited once.
Where to start
Singapore names are short by international standards. The average takes 9.8 keys, compared with 16.1 in New York, and the shortest are Ubi at three keys and Hume and Expo at four. A first-time player will find the North East Line the easiest. For a real test, try the Circle Line against the clock. If you want to compare with other cities, the difficulty ranking has the numbers for Seoul, New York, London and Tokyo.
More stories
TypingWords, characters, keystrokes: how typing speed is measuredWPM sounds simple. The number depends on what you count as a word, when the clock starts and what you do with mistakes.
TypingHow a Korean keyboard builds a syllable, and what it means for station namesHangul has 24 basic letters and thousands of syllables. The keyboard has one key per letter, and the computer does the stacking.
TypingTyping Japanese station names in romajiMost Japanese computer users type the sound of a word in Latin letters and let the software turn it into kana and kanji. That is how this game works too.