Mas River

The Kali Mas ("Golden river" in Javanese), is a distributary of the Brantas River in East Java, flowing north easterly towards the Madura Strait. This river also forms part of the border between Sidoarjo and Gresik regencies.

History

The port city of Surabaya is built along the river. The old Surabaya harbour, built centuries ago, is located near the river mouth. At one point in time, this was an entry port to the Kingdom of Majapahit, and it is also here that the founder of Majapahit empire (Raden Wijaya) fought off a Mongol invasion in 1292.

During the times of the Dutch East Indies, this river was heavily utilized as a goods transport route. Large trade ships unload commodity goods at the strait of Madura, where smaller ships take over and distribute the trade goods inland. The Kali Mas harbour was built to facilitate such trade. The areas along Kali Mas was split into two, which are called Westerkade Kalimas (west of Kali Mas) dan Osterkade Kalimas (east of Kali Mas), and in the local dialect are known as Kulon Kali and Wetan Kali respectively. The areas east of the river were developed for trade and commercial activities. These include Kembang Jepun, Cantikan, Kapasan. The west side includes Gresik road, Kalisosok, and the area around west Tanjung Perak. With the development of land based transport river transport along the Kali Mas has largely been diminished.