The central district comprises the city of Amasya and the countryside around it. At about 1,889 square kilometres it covers more than a third of the province, and it holds forty-four per cent of the provincial population. The city lies in the narrow valley cut by the Yeşilırmak, at an altitude of 411 metres. According to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn's description, the valley runs for some thirteen kilometres from Ziyere, today's Ziyaret, in the north-east to the locality of Çalan in the south-west, and opens to the outside world through three gorges: the north-eastern gorge that follows the river towards Taşova, the northern gorge that descends to Suluova, and the south-western gorge that leads by way of Derbend and Çalan to the plain in the west. The Pontic royal tombs at the foot of Harşena, the citadel and the Ferhat water channel cut into the rock at the edge of Helvacı neighbourhood are among the oldest monuments in the district.
In the Ottoman period the central kaza of Amasya consisted, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, of six nahiyes and 321 villages. By the time Hüsâmeddîn was writing it was divided into four nahiyes: Akdağ, centred on Akviran; Öz, centred on Ezinepazar; Hakala, which took in the Suluova plain; and Geldiklan, centred on Ortaköy. Ezinepazar had a mosque built by Hacı Hamza Bey and a han, bathhouse and zaviye built by Mehmed Ağa; the village became a township in 1987 and returned to village status in 2013. Göynücek in 1954 and Suluova in 1957 were separated from this district and became districts in their own right.
According to TÜİK figures for 2025, the district has 40 neighbourhoods and 100 villages. Three of the neighbourhoods belong to the township of Ziyaret, formerly called Zemendu or Ziyere, which received a municipality in 1958. The orchards and gardens of the valley floor produce misket apples and the small "flower" okra, and the summer pastures on the slopes of Akdağ have long been used for grazing. Among the villages are settlements with a history of their own, such as Yassıçal, whose çuha weaving has a geographical indication, and Şeyhsadi, where the tomb of Şeyh Şâdî stands.
