Mojoanyar District, Mojokerto: Brantas Weir and Rice Plain

Mojoanyar district is a compact lowland district on the edge of Mojokerto city, built around rice fields and the Brantas River that marks its northern boundary. It covers 23.37 square kilometres and holds 12 villages, the fewest of any district in Mojokerto Regency. Its main sight is a nineteenth-century weir with nine gates, and its newest feature is a long, narrow reservoir cut from an old river channel. Between them lie flat fields, busy national roads and a string of villages whose names repeat the same Javanese roots.

Where Mojoanyar District Lies

Mojoanyar is one of the youngest districts in the regency. It was created in 2000 under Regional Regulation 25 of that year, which raised the regency to 18 districts. It was split off from Puri district, and villages from Bangsal may also have been joined to it; either way the new district took most of the land between the city and the river.

Its position is easiest to grasp from the city outward. To the west is Mojokerto city, which is a separate administrative unit. To the south and east lie Puri and Bangsal districts, and a small piece of the east, the village of Kwatu, touches Mojosari district. To the north the Brantas River forms the boundary with Sidoarjo Regency, where the facing district is Tarik. The district’s postal code is 61364.

Almost all of the district lies on the south bank. Kwatu is the exception: the easternmost village sits north of the river, which makes it the one place where Mojoanyar reaches across the water. Anyone reading a map should look twice at Kwatu, because it is the one village that lies across the water from the rest.

The 12 Villages of Mojoanyar District

With only twelve villages in 23 square kilometres, each village is fairly large in territory, and the hamlet lists show clusters of three to six settlements per village. Kulon and Wetan, the Javanese words for west and east, appear in the hamlet names of Kwedenkembar. Sumberjati has the most hamlets with six, while Gayaman and Kwatu have two each.

Flat Rice Country on the Brantas Plain

The whole district is lowland. Rice fields dominate the land use, and the field pattern follows irrigation canals fed from the river works described below. The ground is flat enough that the horizon is set by the trees along the lanes and the roofs of the villages. After heavy rain in the upper catchment, low villages have flooded in the past: earlier floods have struck Jabon, Gayaman and Gebangmalang, and a flood in 2022 hit Ngarjo, Sadartengah and Wunut, where three villages and five hamlets were affected. That history is the reason the river works in this district are so important.

For a visitor the practical meaning of the terrain is that distances are short but roads are crowded. The district sits beside a city and on the main route toward Surabaya, and both farming traffic and through traffic share narrow lanes.

Rolak Songo: The Nine-Gate Weir in Lengkong

The best-known place in the district is Bendung Lengkong Baru, universally called Rolak Songo, in Lengkong village. Rolak means a water gate and songo means nine, so the name describes a weir with nine gates. It stands about four kilometres from the centre of Mojokerto and was built in 1857 in the Dutch colonial period.

Its job is to control how the Brantas water is divided downstream. The gates regulate the level in two branches of the river, the Kali Mas toward Surabaya and the Kali Porong toward Sidoarjo, and they also supply irrigation water to hundreds of hectares of rice land. The weir was destroyed during the war of independence, which flooded the lowlands downstream, and was then rebuilt. After the rebuild one gate was removed, so the number of working gates today should not be taken from the name alone.

A bridge over the weir links Mojoanyar with Sidoarjo, and the lanes around it serve as an alternative route between Mojokerto and Sidoarjo, so the area is busy. In the evenings people come for the cool air near the water and the sunset view, and simple food stalls line the roadside. Local people also tell folk stories about two spirits seen near the weir, an old man carrying a hoe and a young woman; the stories are told as folklore, and the more practical caution is the heavy traffic on the bridge road.

The weir also explains why this plain was developed the way it was: the colonial sugar industry needed dependable canal water, and a river that swells in the wet months and drops in the dry months needed regulation. Reading the canals this way makes the rice and cane landscape of the whole Brantas plain easier to understand.

The Kalimati Long Storage Reservoir

The newest water work is the Kalimati long storage, a reservoir built on a former channel of the Brantas on the border of Sidoarjo and Mojokerto regencies. Its western end lies in Kwatu village. The works were built in 2019 and began operating in 2021, and the reservoir can hold about 1.6 million cubic metres of water. The main purpose is raw water for the drinking-water utilities of the two regencies, with irrigation of nearby farmland as a second use and a possible role for water-based recreation. Because it is a utility reservoir, access and facilities for visitors are limited, and anyone planning a visit should treat it as an engineered landscape rather than a park.

The reservoir turns an old river channel into storage. It also means the eastern corner of Mojoanyar is the part of the district where the river and its works dominate the view.

Floods, Dykes and Village Resilience

Because the district lies on the south bank of a large river and its fields sit only slightly above water level, the village list reads partly as a flood map. Jabon, Gayaman and Gebangmalang were the villages named in the flood of 2016, and Ngarjo, Sadartengah and Wunut in 2022. Low rice land absorbs shallow water without lasting damage, but houses, lanes and the district’s hamlets do not, and that is why the river works in Lengkong are watched closely each wet season. Residents of these villages know the signs of a rising river and the routes to higher ground.

Roads, Rail Crossings and Getting Around

Two national roads run through the district. One crosses the southern part and joins Mojokerto city to the regency seat in Mojosari. The other is the Mojokerto bypass, which passes through Lengkong village and continues toward Sidoarjo and Surabaya. For longer trips from the provincial capital, see the Surabaya-Mojokerto toll road guide, and for rail arrivals the Mojokerto Station page.

In Kepuhanyar village, at the place called Halte Bangsal or Halte Damarsi, the railway crosses the road. The crossing had no barrier for many years and was known for accidents; an automatic barrier was fitted in 2024. Drivers who know the old reputation still approach with care, and anyone on foot or a motorbike should stop and look both ways even where a barrier exists.

Institutions and Everyday Landmarks

For a district of its size, Mojoanyar holds an unusual number of public institutions, which is a consequence of sitting beside the regency’s main city. These include three colleges, the regional health laboratory, a regional plant-protection unit of the provincial agriculture service, a seed development unit for rice and secondary crops, the regency vocational training centre and the regional library. The community health centre of the district is in Gayaman village. A large textile factory stands on the bypass in Lengkong, which gives the district a small industrial edge.

Kepuhanyar is also notable as the only village in the district to hold the rating of a Desa Berdaya, a government classification of villages by self-reliance. These institutions explain why many residents of Mojoanyar commute by short motorbike rides to jobs, classrooms and offices in the city rather than working only in the fields.

Planning a Visit to Mojoanyar District

The district is a short stop rather than a destination for a full day. A sensible plan is to see the weir in the afternoon, walk along the water as the light drops, then return to the city for the evening. If the interest is broader, combine it with the Majapahit sites to the west, covered on the page about Majapahit.

Avoid the roads at the busiest hours of the morning and late afternoon, when factory shifts and school traffic fill the bypass. In the rainy season, check the river level before travelling to the lower villages. The wider region and the places around it are gathered on the East Java overview.