Hamamözü lies at the western end of Amasya province, in a mountain valley against the border with Çorum. Gümüşhacıköy lies to its east and north, Osmancık to the north-west, and Laçin and Çorum to the south. With an area of about 204 square kilometres and a population of around three thousand six hundred, it is the smallest district in the province. The İnegöl mountains rise to the north and west and the Saray mountains to the south and east; the forests are mostly pine and oak. The name comes from the hot spring in the district centre and from the word "öz", used in place names for a small valley.
The Arkut Bey hot springs define the district. Local sources claim that the spring has been in use since Roman times, but no excavation report or published reading of an inscription confirms this. Some accounts make Arkut Bey, who gave the baths their name, a Seljuk lord who repaired them, others a man who opened them for use in the Ottoman period. The documented history begins in 1887, when a farm belonging to İbrahim and Kâmil Bey, notables of Gümüş, was bought by sixty Circassian households who had migrated from the Caucasus, and the village of Hamamözü was founded. The village became the seat of a nahiye in 1910 and received a municipality in the early 1970s. Law no. 3644 of 1990 made it a district, and its administration was set up on 5 August 1991, separating it from Gümüşhacıköy.
Livelihoods depend on farming and livestock, and orchards of misket apples have spread in recent years; spa tourism brings life to the district in summer. Hamamözü is also known for wrestling: Hamit Kaplan, heavyweight gold medallist at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and his uncle and teacher Adil Candemir came from here, and karakucak wrestling is held every August. According to TÜİK figures for 2025, the district has 4 neighbourhoods and 17 villages.
