SINGAPORE'S Bukit Brown Cemetery has been named as an at risk site on the 2014 World Monuments Watch - a biennial listing by the World Monuments Fund which compiles cultural heritage sites that are threatened around the world.

Bukit Brown Cemetery, where the graves of pioneering Chinese immigrants to Singapore since the mid-nineteenth century stand, is one of 67 sites from 41 countries and territories.

Other sites include Indonesia's Ngada Villages, the churches of St. Merri and Notre-Dame de Lorette in Paris and cultural heritage sites in Syria.

Work on a controversial 2km dual four-lane road, costing $134.7 million, cutting through the Bukit Brown cemetery will start early next year after the affected graves are exhumed.

This list has been issued by the New York-based group since the mid-1990s to promote awareness and action of at risk cultural heritage sites. This is the first time a Singaporean site has made it to the list.