Written simply as "Alan" in the governorate's list of villages but recorded as Alanköy in the population registers, Alanköy lies 28 kilometres from the town of Göynücek and 73 kilometres from Amasya. The village is one of the five in the district with a health post, and a 2019 list of schools includes it with both a primary and a middle school; these services place it among the larger villages of Göynücek. Its population, however, has fallen to a quarter in the last twenty years: 1,365 people were registered in 2007, and 356 remained in 2025.

The Name

The village's name in the official records differs from the one in everyday use; the population registers say Alanköy, while the governorate and the school names say Alan. Nor does Alanköy appear in the list of renamed settlements compiled by Bekir Başalan. In the published index of the accounts register of 1530, within the sub-district (nahiye) of Geldiklan-âbâd, where today's Gediksaray is recorded under the name Varay, İkizyaka as Efkeri and Kışlabeyi as Cender, there appear a hamlet (mezraa) called "Alañ" and a village called "Alañcuk". Whether these entries refer to the same place as today's Alanköy cannot be confirmed by documents; the index gives only the names and their pages in the register. The village of Baş Alan, which Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar mentions in the sub-district of Akdağ and which produced Sheikh Muhyiddîn Mehmed Akdâğî, is a different village; there is no information linking it with Alanköy.

School and Health Post

The governorate writes that, besides the state hospital in the district centre, there are working health posts in the villages of Karaşar, Damlaçimen, Gediksaray, Ayvalıpınar and Alan. Among the seventeen schools listed in Taştan's 2019 thesis from the Ministry of National Education's directory are Göynücek Alan Primary School and Göynücek Alan Middle School. The same thesis records that the village lives from farming and livestock and that it has a drinking water and sewerage network. No current record has been found as to whether the schools are still open or how many pupils they have.

Wedding and Funeral Customs

In Taştan's collection, Alan appears frequently in the chapter on wedding customs. It is recorded in this village, too, that the women cooking the wedding meal put a coin inside a stuffed vine leaf, and that, depending on who finds it, people say "If a girl gets it, may she marry; if an old person gets it, may they die." On the henna night a coin is placed in the bride's hand, and another inside her shoe when she leaves her home; the bride writes the names of her unmarried friends on the sole of her shoe, and it is believed that the one whose name is rubbed off first will be the next bride. Smearing butter on the door of the new home and driving in a nail, the bride's pushing over a bowl of water set before her, and the bride and groom sweeping the floor together are also among the practices observed in the villages that include Alan. Reading the Yasin chapter beside a dying patient, avoiding any talk of death near them and bringing them the food they ask for are likewise recorded for the village.

Population

From 1,365 in 2007, Alanköy's population fell a little each year to 993 in 2013. The real break comes between 2013 and 2015: dropping to 760 in 2014 and to 367 in 2015, the village lost nearly two thirds of its population in two years. After that the figure moved between 360 and 460, rising only in 2018 to 612 and in 2023 to 536 before returning to its earlier level the following year. In 2025, 356 people are registered in the village, 181 men and 175 women. The records do not explain the sudden drop of 2014 and 2015; that the population of the neighbourhoods of Göynücek town rose markedly in the same two years suggests that some villagers may have moved their registration to the town, but this remains no more than a guess.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

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