Why it looks like this

Surabaya was eastern Java's gate to the sea centuries before the Dutch, and its old north end still reads as a trading city of communities: the Arab quarter around the Ampel mosque, the Chinese quarter's shophouses, the European business district of colonial 'Old Surabaya' near the Red Bridge — each with its own street texture.

Behind every main street lies the other Surabaya: kampungs, the dense village-like lanes where most residents live, upgraded over decades by famous community programmes. In 1945 the city's streets were the battlefield of the Battle of Surabaya, the fight that made November 10 Indonesia's Heroes' Day.