Amasya is the name of a province in Turkey's Black Sea Region, set behind the coastal ranges on the belt that opens toward the interior; the same name is used for the provincial capital, a city built into the narrow valley cut by the Yeşilırmak. Lying at about 400 metres above sea level on the valley floor, the city is hemmed in on both sides by high rock walls. The sight has never been merely scenic, for it has also governed where and how the city could grow. Mountains, plains, climate, geology and the details of the Yeşilırmak valley are treated in separate articles, so they are mentioned here only as points of connection.

Location and Neighbouring Provinces

Amasya Province lies in the Central Black Sea section, in the transition zone between the sea and the inner regions of Anatolia. Samsun borders it to the north, Tokat to the east, Yozgat to the south and Çorum to the west. These neighbours also indicate the direction of the province's economic and historical ties. Samsun, to the north, is the region's principal port, and the road from Amasya to the Black Sea has long passed through it. Tokat, to the east, shares the upper basin of the same river system. Yozgat in the south and Çorum in the west mark the passage toward Central Anatolia.

On the map, the positions of individual districts sometimes look odd. Göynücek, in the south-west, sits at a point surrounded by Amasya, Tokat, Çorum and Yozgat, hemmed in by four provinces in a way few Turkish districts are; at one time Göynücek was attached to Çorum. Taşova, in the north-east, lies between Tokat and Samsun on the passage through which the Yeşilırmak descends toward the Black Sea. Erbaa and Turhal of Tokat lie to its east, Çarşamba and Ladik of Samsun to its north. Gümüşhacıköy in the west is bordered by Samsun and Çorum; from the district centre it is roughly 35 to 40 kilometres to Osmancık in Çorum and about 40 kilometres to Vezirköprü in Samsun by the plateau road to the north. Almost every district of the province therefore borders at least one other province directly, and the way roads branch along these boundaries explains why Amasya is described as a province of passage.

Area and Elevation

The province covers 5,628 square kilometres. Its population at the end of 2025 was 342,242, or about 61 people per square kilometre. Density is highest in Suluova, with 103 people per square kilometre. The largest district by area is the central district, with 1,889 square kilometres, followed by Taşova (971), Merzifon (888), Gümüşhacıköy (629), Göynücek (591), Suluova (456) and Hamamözü (204). Together these seven figures add up to the area of the province.

Differences in elevation within the province are considerable and largely shape the character of its districts. Taşova, at an average of about 241 metres, is the lowest district, located where the broad floor opened by the Yeşilırmak begins on its way to the sea. The city of Amasya stands at roughly 410 metres. Suluova lies at 540 to 550 metres, Göynücek at about 520, Hamamözü at about 690, Merzifon at about 745 and Gümüşhacıköy at about 820. Sources give these district elevations with differences of a few metres, but the order does not change. The figures show that the land rises westward and south-westward from the valley floor, and that the highest flats are gathered around Merzifon, Gümüşhacıköy and Hamamözü. The mountainous parts and plains of these districts are examined as separate geographical units in other articles.

The Yeşilırmak and the Province's Water Network

The hydrographic backbone of the province is the Yeşilırmak. Known in antiquity as the Iris, and as Kumeşmaha in Hittite sources, the river rises on the slopes of Kösedağ in the Suşehri district of Sivas and flows into the Black Sea at Çarşamba in Samsun. It is 519 kilometres long, and its basin covers about 36,000 square kilometres. The river is formed by the joining of three main branches. The principal branch, the Tokat River, passes through the Çengel Gorge after Turhal and reaches Amasya territory. The Kelkit is the river's largest tributary, about 320 kilometres long, and the Çekerek, at about 256 kilometres, is another major one. The Yeşilırmak crosses the Canik Mountains through a long, narrow gorge valley before reaching the sea. The Kızılırmak basin also touches Amasya Province: streams such as the Gümüşsuyu, which descend from Gümüşhacıköy, water the plain and then join the Kızılırmak or the Yeşilırmak outside the district boundaries. In this way the province lies in a belt where two great Black Sea basins draw close together.

The river's place in the province's geography is not only physical. The Suluova and Taşova plains around the Yeşilırmak carry the province's agricultural weight. Some sources describe Amasya as one of Turkey's leading provinces for apple growing, and tobacco, peaches, cherries and okra are also well-known local crops. Behind this production lies the fertile soil built up over centuries by the alluvium the river carries. The valley of the Yeşilırmak is introduced in detail in a separate article; what matters here is how the life of the city and the surrounding villages is organised around this river.

A City Built into a Valley

The city lies on the floor of the valley that the Yeşilırmak opens as it flows from west to east. According to the Amasya entry of the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the valley is a narrow one enclosed by high cliffs on both sides, and the river runs for about four kilometres through this gorge-like valley within the city. On the river's left bank, that is, the north, rise caves and royal tombs carved into steep rock, with the citadel directly above them. This is the south-facing slope of Mount Harşena, and the rock tombs of the Pontic kings are cut into it. On the left bank the strip between the castle ruins and royal tombs on one side and the river on the other is so narrow that settlement forms only a thin ribbon on this side.

The right bank, the south side of the river, is gentler and relatively flat. For this reason the main residential and growth area of the city developed on the south side, and it still expands toward the south-east and south-west. That most Seljuk works stand south of the river reflects the same historical choice. Sources name as the oldest Turkish structure in the city the mosque that the Danishmendid Melik Gazi had built immediately east of the citadel, on the site of today's Şamlar Mosque. Among the surviving buildings, the Burmalı Minare Mosque (1237-1247) and the Gökmedrese Mosque (1266-1267) come first to mind.

The city's relationship with daylight also arises from the shape of the valley. Because the mountains rise on both sides, the sun comes up late in the morning and leaves early in the evening, and the light that filters between the rocks spreads a measured brightness over a short day. Seen from the higher parts of the city, the layers of history are read in the same vertical order: the citadel at the top, the rock tombs beneath it, mosques and madrasas on the slopes, and at the bottom the Yalıboyu houses and mansions lining the Yeşilırmak. These Ottoman-era houses, with their bays and timber frames, seem to lean over the water and make up the city's most frequently cited image in Turkey. The narrowness of the valley has pressed building up the slopes and along the riverbank rather than letting it spread horizontally.

Bridges, Neighbourhoods and the Limits of the Valley

The limits on growth in a city built into a narrow valley were noticed in the sources early. Hans Dernschwam, who came to Amasya in the spring of 1555 with the Austrian embassy, writes that the city lay in a narrow valley and that the houses, mostly two-storeyed and of mud brick, looked as though piled on top of one another. According to the same observer there were then one wooden and three stone bridges over the river. Dernschwam also records that a great fire broke out on 14 April 1555, that the burned houses were quickly rebuilt, and that the city had eleven mosques. He describes the princely palace as a simple single-storey brick building with gardens, standing at the foot of the mountain. Süleyman the Magnificent was in residence there at the time.

The city's population and neighbourhood counts show in figures how much room the valley allowed for building. In 1525 Amasya had fifty-five neighbourhoods, five of them non-Muslim, and a population estimated at about eight thousand. In the late sixteenth century the number of neighbourhoods is again fifty-five, but the population had approached ten thousand. Evliya Çelebi, in the mid-seventeenth century, counts fifty-three neighbourhoods and five thousand households, which means a population of about twenty thousand. In the nineteenth century the population stood between twenty-five and thirty thousand, while the number of neighbourhoods was about thirty-six. The figures show that over these centuries the city grew in population but hardly in physical extent. The authors of the TDV entry attribute this to the city's site, which was not well suited to growth. Occasional earthquakes and floods should also be considered alongside the limited room for settlement.

The constraint continued in the Republican period. The urban population was around twelve thousand in 1927; today more than 125,000 people live in the urban part of the central district. Most of this increase has settled in neighbourhoods expanding south-eastward and south-westward on the south bank of the valley.

Administrative Divisions

Amasya Province is today divided into seven districts including the centre: Merkez, Göynücek, Gümüşhacıköy, Hamamözü, Merzifon, Suluova and Taşova. At the end of 2025 the province had eight municipalities, 107 neighbourhoods attached to them, and a further 372 villages. About 77 per cent of the population lives in towns and cities. In 1927 the proportion was 26 per cent; in other words, within about a century the province moved from a predominantly rural structure to an urban one. Over the same period the provincial population rose from 114,884 to 342,242. In the census tables the provincial population peaked in 2000 (365,231) and has fallen back somewhat since.

Each district sits in a different geographical setting. The central district, with 151,433 people, is the most populous part of the province, and most of its inhabitants live in the city. Merzifon is the province's plain district in the west; with 77,077 people it ranks second and lies about 46 kilometres from the provincial centre. Merzifon and its surroundings have been known historically as a place where roads to the Black Sea coast and to Central Anatolia cross. According to some accounts, Strabo called this region the "thousand villages" district. Suluova lies only 26 kilometres west of the provincial centre and ranks third with 46,928 people. About two thirds of the villages of the district are plain villages and one third forest and mountain villages. Taşova ranks fourth with 30,034 people and is the only district where most of the population lives in the countryside; its urban share is about 38 per cent. Gümüşhacıköy has 22,319 people, Göynücek 10,823 and Hamamözü 3,628.

These districts are not old, and the province's borders have not stayed fixed. Until recently Taşova was a settlement attached to Tokat. From 1923 to 1944 it belonged to the Erbaa district of Tokat; in 1944 it was separated as a district centre, but because access to Tokat was difficult and services were delayed, it was attached to Amasya Province in 1953. Göynücek became a district in 1954 and Suluova in 1957, both separated from the central district. Hamamözü, split from Gümüşhacıköy in 1990, is the youngest. Different years are sometimes found in the sources for the founding of districts, but the general picture is this: Merkez, Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy were districts (kazas) before the Republic, and the other four were established between the middle and the end of the twentieth century.

From the Ottoman Sanjak to the Present Province

The clearest sign of the change in Amasya's administrative geography is the difference between the borders of the Ottoman sanjak and those of today's province. When Amasya entered Ottoman rule it became the centre of a sanjak of the same name and, at first, also the centre of the Rum Province. In the early sixteenth century the sanjak consisted of the central kaza of Amasya together with the kazas of Ladik and Merzifon. The central kaza then comprised six nahiyes and 321 villages. In 1576-1577 the number of kazas rose to seven with the addition of Gümüş, Gedegra, Zeytun and Simre-i Ladik. Evliya Çelebi notes that in the mid-seventeenth century the sanjak had nine kazas; documents of 1665 show eleven and those of 1671 ten. In the late nineteenth century the sanjak belonged to the Sivas Province and consisted of eight kazas: Amasya centre, Merzifon, Vezirköprü, Osmancık, Gümüşhacıköy, Ladik, Havza and Mecidözü.

Of these, Vezirköprü, Ladik and Havza now belong to Samsun, and Osmancık and Mecidözü to Çorum. The old sanjak extended both farther west and farther north than today's province, while Taşova and Göynücek lay outside that structure. After the founding of the Republic Amasya became a province on 20 April 1924, according to the TDV entry; some sources place its provincial status in 1923. The present borders of the province therefore are not a direct continuation of the historical sanjak but were shaped by administrative changes of the twentieth century.

Roads and the Axis of Transport

Amasya's geographical importance comes as much from being a passage as from being a valley. The city stands where the roads linking the interior of Anatolia with the port of Samsun pass. According to the TDV entry, in early antiquity Amasya lay on the Tarsus-Kayseri-Zile-Samsun trade route, and in the Ottoman period, because it lay on the Azerbaijan-Bursa road, it was an important market for the silks arriving from Iran. In the ten months of 1554-1555 the quantity of silk cloth officially entering the city and weighed there is documented at about fifteen tons. In the sixteenth century the city had a dye-house, a candle-house and a mint; Evliya Çelebi mentions more than a thousand shops in the seventeenth century, and the report of Cuinet in the late nineteenth century speaks of some 2,500 weavers. The city was counted a lively commercial centre thanks to its nearness to the sea, and in 1864 a fair was established that began on 15 December and ran to the end of the month.

Modern transport follows the same old line. The main highway from Samsun to Istanbul (D.100) serves the provincial centre, Suluova, Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy, and Taşova too is reached by the same road. The railway completed in 1930 connected Amasya with Samsun, which has a natural harbour, and eased transport. Distances from the centre are as follows: Suluova 26, Merzifon 46, Göynücek 46, Taşova 48, Gümüşhacıköy 68 and Hamamözü 90 kilometres. Hamamözü reaches the provincial centre by way of Gümüşhacıköy, while Çorum is about 43 kilometres away.

Chronology

1525: Amasya has fifty-five neighbourhoods (five non-Muslim) and an estimated population of eight thousand.

1555: Hans Dernschwam visits the city and records one wooden and three stone bridges over the Yeşilırmak and eleven mosques.

1864: A fair established in December shows the commercial vitality of the city.

20 April 1924: According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Amasya becomes a province.

1930: The Amasya-Samsun railway line is completed.

1944: Taşova becomes a district centre; in 1953 it is attached to Amasya Province.

1954: Göynücek becomes a district.

1957: Suluova becomes a district.

1990: Hamamözü is separated from Gümüşhacıköy and becomes a district.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources