Dau District fills the strip between Malang city and Batu city, ten villages that run from busy roadside suburbs in the east up to citrus orchards and forest on the slopes of the Kawi and Butak range in the west. Few districts in Malang Regency contain such a quick change of scene: housing estates and campuses beside the main road, then, a short climb away, hillside gardens where oranges are picked from the tree. This page explains how the district is laid out, what it grows, and which places give it its identity.
The Position of Dau District
The district covers a little under forty-two square kilometres, a small area by the standards of the regency. Kota Batu and Karangploso lie to the north. Malang city borders it on the east, and Wagir is the neighbour to the south. The western side is the mountain range of Gunung Kawi and Butak, where the land climbs steeply into forest. Gunung Butak is the highest peak of the Kawi massif. A small number of lower summits rise nearer to the villages, among them Bukit Jabal and Gunung Malang.
The road connecting Malang with Batu passes straight through, past Sengkaling, and this single corridor explains much of the district’s pattern. The east and centre, along and near the road, are urban in feel and densely settled. The west turns rural and then wild. Elevation in the district is broad: the lowest parts sit near the city plain, while the highest ground goes well above a thousand metres.
Ten Villages From Road to Ridge
Dau is made up of ten villages: Gadingkulon, Kalisongo, Karangwidoro, Kucur, Landungsari, Mulyoagung, Petungsewu, Selorejo, Sumbersekar and Tegalweru. The district office sits in Mulyoagung, on the main road, and one of its hamlets, Sengkaling, has given its name to the best known park in the area.
| Village | Hamlets listed | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Mulyoagung | Dermo, Jetak Lor, Jetak Ngasri, Jetis, Sengkaling | District seat on the main road |
| Landungsari | Bendungan, Klandungan, Rambaan | Largest market and a main hub |
| Karangwidoro | Karang Ampel, Karang Tengah, Ndoro | Fast housing growth near the city |
| Kalisongo | Kunci, Kuso, Kuso Tegir, Loandeng, Sumberejo | Housing growth near the city |
| Selorejo | Krajan, Gumuk, Selokerto | Citrus village |
| Kucur | Krajan, Godehan, Ketohan, Klampok, Klaseman, Sumber Bendo, Turi | Largest number of hamlets, upland valley edge |
| Gadingkulon | Krajan, Princi, Sempu | Slope orchards |
| Petungsewu | Krajan, Bulurejo | Slope orchards |
| Sumbersekar | Krajan, Banjartengah, Precet, Semanding | Site of the old Dutch-era district office |
| Tegalweru | Krajan, Jengglong, Kraguman | Village on the western side of the district |
How the Seat Moved and the Borders Shrank
The district’s administrative history is unusually mobile. Under Dutch rule the district office stood in Dusun Dau, which is today Dusun Krajan in the village of Sumbersekar. After independence it moved to Dusun Jetis, then to a spot near the military post, and moved again before settling on the main road in Mulyoagung, where it remains. The name Dau, then, belongs to a hamlet that no longer hosts the office.
Dau has never been divided into new districts. Instead it has lost territory to its neighbours. When Malang city grew, three of its villages, Tlogomas, Merjosari and Karang Besuki, passed to the city, and later the village of Dadaprejo went to the new Batu administrative city. That is why the district looks small today, and why its eastern edge blends so completely into Malang’s urban area.
Selorejo and the Citrus Hillsides
The agricultural heart of the district is citrus. The orchard area is put at about 430 hectares, and the planting reaches over the neighbouring slopes of Gadingkulon and Petungsewu as well as Selorejo itself. Almost every household holds land with citrus trees. The village sits between about 800 and 1,200 metres above sea level and receives roughly 1,300 millimetres of rain a year, which suits the crop.
Two kinds dominate: Baby Malang, a small fruit grown largely for juice, and keprok, the loose-skinned mandarin that people peel and eat. Locals call the fruit either jeruk Dau, after the district, or jeruk Selorejo, after the village. Two local farmers, Abah Dulawi and Sulaiman, are remembered as the pioneers, who started planting about twenty years before 2018. The village adopted the title of citrus tourism village in 2011.
The main harvest runs from about June to December. Outside that window comes a smaller crop known as apitan, which farmers want to strengthen with year-round techniques. One trader buys around twenty tons a day during the apitan period, which shows how much fruit is involved even in the lean part of the year. In the village government’s plans, citrus is meant to be run through the village enterprise alongside tourism, so that the orchards pay locally. Visitors can join fruit-picking visits, where guides show how to pick and eat the fruit, and the village also offers training on cultivation. For the better-known citrus of the neighbouring hills, see the pages on Batu oranges and the Batu mandarin.
Sengkaling and the Road Corridor
Sengkaling is the name most Malang residents associate with Dau. The recreation park there has been operating since 1950 on the main road between Malang and Batu, on land of about eight and a half hectares, of which roughly six are green. Its water attractions are fed by mountain spring water, and it also holds a small animal area with peacocks, deer and cockatoos, a hedge maze and a campground. Today the park is run by a university in Malang. A culinary strip next to it caters to the large student and commuter traffic that uses the road.
That road corridor is the reason Dau has become a satellite of Malang. Housing estates, boarding houses and rented rooms have multiplied, especially in Karangwidoro and Kalisongo near the city line, and campuses have followed. Universitas Ma Chung and a Brawijaya University campus in the Dieng area stand in the district, and several schools and training colleges sit along the road as well. Landungsari is the other hub of the district, and Pasar Landungsari is its largest market.
Heritage Near the City Line
On the border with Malang city stands Candi Badut, an old Hindu temple that belongs to the early Hindu-Buddhist era of the Malang basin. It is easy to overlook beside a busy city edge, and it reminds the visitor that the plain under the suburbs was inhabited long before the colonial town. The district also holds a small zoology museum, the Museum Zoologi Frater Vianney, which adds a quiet scholarly note to the mix of institutions along the road.
How the Hamlets Shape Daily Life
The hamlet lists in the table above show a contrast worth noticing. Villages near the city, such as Mulyoagung and Kalisongo, are split into several named hamlets each, many of which now behave like neighbourhoods of a single built-up area. Kucur, further up the valley edge, holds the most hamlets of any village, which suggests a scattered settlement pattern with small clusters of houses on separate ridges. Villages like Petungsewu and Gadingkulon have only two or three, and their names such as Krajan, the old central hamlet, show where the original settlement began. In most Javanese districts, the hamlet named Krajan marks the oldest core of a village, and the others spread outward from it.
Slopes of Gunung Kawi and Butak
The west is where Dau leaves the city behind. Camping and nature spots lie on the forested slopes: Bumi Perkemahan Bedengan, a camping ground set among pines with clean spring-fed streams; Kebon Rojo Camp; the Lembah Dieng park; the Parang Tejo waterfall; and the Gunungsari valley at Kucur. They are small attractions, popular with school groups and weekend families, and they give the district a green hinterland that many suburbs lack.
Gunung Butak, the top of the Kawi massif, rises above all of this, and hikers use the slopes. The Kawi and Butak range forms a long dormant volcanic body on the border with Blitar. The famous pilgrimage site known as Gunung Kawi is on a different side of the massif, in Wonosari village, so Dau should not be confused with it. A traveller coming from the Dau side sees the range as a wall of forest, with orchards giving way to pine and then to dense trees.
Getting Around and Visiting Dau District
Dau is reached easily from the city centre, since the Malang to Batu road runs through it. To climb the western slopes, a vehicle is needed, as paths narrow quickly beyond the villages. Anyone heading on from here toward the highlands will find that Batu is only a short drive north, while for a bigger regional frame the Malang to Bromo road page explains the eastern side of the same basin.
A good plan is to treat the road in the morning and the slopes in the afternoon. Spend time at the park or temple near the city line, shop at Landungsari market, and then go west to Selorejo during the harvest months for fruit-picking, or to Bedengan for forest air. The mix of campus life, citrus farming and mountain edge is why Dau District rewards a stop rather than just a drive-through.
Related guides: Singosari District, Malang: Temples, Tea Slopes and Towns, Wagir District: Malang Regency Kawi Slopes and Puppets, Malang Regency Districts: Choosing Between the Kecamatan.