The Republican period of Amasya is often told as a quiet appendix to the age of the princes and the National Struggle. Yet in these years the city's administrative status, population, economy, education and attitude toward its historic fabric all changed completely. A sanjak center under the Ottomans, and at the end of the nineteenth century one of eight districts attached to the province of Sivas, the city became with the Republic the center of a province bearing its own name; it was introduced to the railway, to factories, to an institution of higher education and eventually to a university.

From the National Struggle to the Republic

To understand Republican Amasya one must start with June 1919. After landing at Samsun on 19 May 1919, Mustafa Kemal arrived in Amasya on 12 June, and during his stay he prepared the text that set out the justification, method and organization of the resistance. On the night of 21-22 June, the principles he dictated to his aide Cevat Abbas Bey were quickly telegraphed, as the Amasya Circular (Tamim), to all civil governors and military commanders. The circular declared that the integrity of the homeland and the independence of the nation were in danger, that the Istanbul Government was unable to fulfil the responsibility it had assumed, and that the nation's independence would be saved by the nation's own resolve and determination; it called for a national congress to meet at Sivas, with three representatives from every sanjak setting out for it. The same text announces a separate congress at Erzurum on behalf of the eastern provinces. Rauf Orbay, Refet Bele and Ali Fuat Pasha also signed the text alongside Mustafa Kemal; that these three names are not mentioned openly in the Nutuk can be understood from the memoirs of Cevat Abbas Gürer. The telegrams were sent from the Saraydüzü Barracks, which today serves as the National Struggle Museum and Congress Center.

The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi especially notes that this movement was the most important event in the city's history after the Ottoman period. After the circular the congresses met at Erzurum and Sivas, while Amasya carried on in the new administrative order as a provincial center. Its role in 1919 nevertheless kept a lasting place in the identity of the city; a recent example is that the emblem of Amasya University includes a reference to the Amasya Circular alongside the Yeşilırmak and the Royal Rock Tombs.

Becoming a Province and the First Administrators

When the Republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, Amasya's administrative status did not change at once, and sources do not agree entirely on the date on which it became a province. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi records the date as 20 April 1924, giving the day, and general encyclopedia entries also say 1924; some sources, however, speak of an administrative reorganization in 1923. The lists of officeholders offer a clue to why two dates are cited: the list of governors who have served begins in 1923 with İsmail Hakkı Mumcu and from 1924 names Ahmet Hilmi Ergenli (1924-1927). On the municipal side, after the term of Veysibeyzade Nafız Bey, one of the last Ottoman city prefects, in 1921-1923, Veysibeyzade Sıtkı Bey (1923-1926) appears as the first mayor of the Republic. These examples suggest that the transition was a process spread over 1923 and 1924; for the exact official decision, the 20 April 1924 given by the TDV is the most detailed record.

The administrative structure of the new province changed over the following decades. Today Amasya consists of the central district and six others: Göynücek, Gümüşhacıköy, Hamamözü, Merzifon, Suluova and Taşova. In the TDV's table, based on figures from the 1980s, the province comprised the central district plus six districts, sixteen sub-districts (bucak) and 360 villages; current accounts count eight towns (belde) and 372 villages. The notes to the population table also show that the creation of districts directly affected the figures of the center: the establishment of Göynücek as a district, and of Suluova before the 1960 census, markedly reduced the village and town population of the central district.

The Course of the Population

Amasya's urban population grew very slowly in the first half-century of the Republic and markedly faster in the following fifty years. According to census results, in the 1927 census the central district had a total population of 60,479, of whom only about twelve thousand lived in the town; the TDV gives the urban figure for the same census as 12,481. The figure had risen to 14,470 by 1950, that is, by only about two thousand people in twenty-three years. The real leap began in the second half of the 1950s: the urban population reached 28,525 in 1960, 36,646 in 1970, 53,431 in 1985 and 74,393 in the 2000 census. Over the same period the village and town population fell from about 71 thousand in 1950 to 47 thousand in 2007 and 32 thousand in 2023. The growth of the center is thus partly the result of migration from countryside to city and partly of the separation of districts.

The picture is different for the province as a whole. According to the TDV, in the 1985 census the province, covering 5,520 square kilometers, had 358,289 inhabitants. The 2024 figure is 342,378; the province therefore holds somewhat fewer people today than forty years ago. According to the annual data for 2007-2025, the population fluctuated between 320 and 342 thousand, hovered around 322 thousand in 2011-2014 and has risen slowly in the following years. An amateur population compilation shows a value of 342,242 for 2025; because the compilation itself states that it is unofficial, this figure can be used only to show the trend. The same compilation's migration table for 2008-2014 shows a net loss through migration every year of between 1,600 and 2,700 people. Current encyclopedia accounts likewise count Amasya among the provinces that lose population and write that young people leave for large cities for education and work.

According to 2024 figures, 74.99 percent of the provincial population lives in provincial and district centers and 25.01 percent in towns and villages; the density is 61 people per square kilometer. The distribution by district is as follows: center 151,058, Merzifon 76,854, Suluova 47,101, Taşova 30,348, Gümüşhacıköy 22,663, Göynücek 10,787, Hamamözü 3,567. That Merzifon and Suluova together are the second and third largest settlements of the province shows that Amasya's economy is not concentrated in the center alone.

Transport and Infrastructure

Amasya lies on the roads linking the interior of Anatolia to the port of Samsun, and this position has shaped the city's commercial life for centuries. One of the most concrete infrastructure improvements the Republican period brought to the city was the railway line completed in 1930; according to the TDV, this line connected the city to Samsun, a natural harbor, and eased transport. A later investment was the Amasya-Merzifon Airport, which opened in 2008 and is regarded as a development that strengthened the province's transport infrastructure. The site of the city also sets a limit to these developments: the Yeşilırmak flows for about four kilometers through a narrow valley within the city, on the left bank only a thin strip of settlement lies between the castle ruins and royal tombs on one side and the river on the other, and the real growth occurs on the right bank of the river toward the southeast and southwest. The TDV states plainly that the city has been unable to expand greatly because of its physical conditions.

Agriculture and Industry

The principal economic activity of the province remained agriculture in the Republican period as well. The fertile plains along the watercourses, such as Suluova, Gümüşova and Taşova, form the center of production. According to the TDV, the founding of the Amasya Sugar Factory in 1954 and the construction of the facilities of the Meat and Fish Authority (Et Balık Kurumu) encouraged sugar beet production and livestock raising. Sugar beet remains the most important industrial crop of the province today and is processed at the Amasya Sugar Factory. Wheat, maize, barley, green lentils and potatoes are widely grown; sunflower, poppy and onion also hold an important place. Alongside weaving looms, flour, oil, feed and fruit-juice factories process agricultural products; the TDV also lists large flour mills, a dairy factory and a factory for concrete building elements. Industry based on livestock, together with cattle and sheep raising, poultry and milk production, completes the economic base of the province.

This economic structure resembles the slow growth of agriculture-based industry more than an industrial breakthrough. The loss through migration seen in the population tables shows the limit of this structure. The city was never a major industrial center in earlier times either. According to the TDV, in the sixteenth century it had a dye-house, a candle-works and a mint, and silk weaving was widely practiced; at the end of the nineteenth century, with about 2,500 weavers, it was a lively commercial town. The Republican period replaced this commercial vitality with agriculture and agriculture-based factories, and of the historic weaving tradition only handicrafts remain.

The Amasya Apple

The first product that comes to mind at the mention of Amasya is, without doubt, the apple. The province is known in fruit growing above all for the Amasya apple, which is preferred in local and national markets for its strong aroma and keeping quality. The region also calls this apple, for short, the misket apple; it is hard, small and sweet, known for its distinctive scent and for lasting a long time. Cherries are sold to domestic and foreign markets; peaches, pears, quinces, apricots, grapes and plums are other fruits grown in the province. The microclimate of the Yeşilırmak valley is said to be decisive in this production: Amasya shows a transitional character between the Black Sea and continental climates, annual precipitation lies between 436 and 458 millimeters, spring is the wettest season and summer is dry. In winter, snow on the valley floor either has little effect or lasts only a short time.

The gardens behind the Yalıboyu houses and the fruit trees along the riverbank are part of the look of the city. Besides the apple, the products of Amasya that carry a geographical indication include Amasya Beji Marble and Amasya Flower Okra. In the kitchen, the dishes registered with a geographical indication by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office in 2021 and 2022 are Amasya stuffed broad beans (baklalı dolma), Amasya çörek, Amasya flower okra with meat, Amasya toyga soup, Amasya eggplant pehli, burmalı Amasya çörek, Amasya yağlısı and Amasya keşkek.

Educational and Cultural Reforms

With the Republic, Amasya's madrasa tradition lost its legal footing. The Law on the Unification of Education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat), passed on 3 March 1924, placed all educational institutions under the Ministry of Education and opened the way for the madrasas to close. The city's intellectual life had taken shape around these institutions for centuries, so the effect of the law in Amasya must have been felt more deeply than in many other places. In 1928, with the adoption of the Latin alphabet, the Nation Schools (Millet Mektepleri) opened and began teaching adults to read and write in the new letters; from 1932 the People's Houses (Halkevleri), with their lectures, theater, libraries and courses, became the center of cultural life. These measures covered the whole country and were applied in Amasya as well; however, the sources consulted contain no figures for courses in the city, no opening date for its People's House and no literacy rates, so only the general framework can be given here.

One of the new era's cultural institutions was the museum. The Amasya Museum was founded in 1925, the present building was erected in 1977, and in 1980 it opened to visitors as the Amasya Archaeological Museum. Its collection of archaeological and ethnographic works from thirteen different civilizations, from the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic periods to the Ottoman era, has grown to nearly twenty-four thousand objects.

Education and Amasya University

Amasya's character as a city of learning was strong in the Ottoman period. The TDV reports that the traveler G. Perrot, who came to the city in 1861, described Amasya as "the Oxford of Anatolia" and wrote that nearly two thousand students studied in its madrasas; Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century, likewise describes the city as a city of students. In the Republican period, educational institutions first took the place of this tradition. The foundation of today's university was laid with the Faculty of Education established by the Ministry of National Education in 1974; the following year the Amasya Vocational School opened. In 1981, with the founding of the Council of Higher Education, these two units were attached to Ondokuz Mayıs University, and in the same year a School of Education attached to the Faculty of Education of Ondokuz Mayıs University was established. The Merzifon Vocational School opened in the 1991-1992 academic year and the Amasya School of Health in 1992-1993.

Amasya University became an independent state university under the law that came into force on 17 March 2006 and established fifteen new universities. The university's first faculties were Education and Health Sciences; the faculties of Science and Letters and of Architecture were founded in 2006 but began teaching in later years. The Faculty of Technology was founded in 2009, the Faculty of Medicine in 2011, the Faculty of Theology in 2012 and the Merzifon Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences in 2014. In the 2021-2022 academic year the university had 8,532 associate-degree, 6,482 undergraduate, 1,254 master's and 31 doctoral students, 16,299 in all; in 2022 it employed 705 academic staff. As of 2021 the institution consists of eight faculties, one school, eight vocational schools and three institutes. The campuses cover Milli Hakimiyet, Yeşilırmak and İpekköy, the Faculty of Medicine campus and the buildings of the vocational schools in the districts.

The founding of the Faculty of Medicine in 2011 also tied the university to the city's health services. The city's main hospital today bears the name Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin Training and Research Hospital, a reference to the surgeon who trained in Amasya in the fifteenth century. The hospital administration works together with the faculty of medicine and offers services in branches such as pediatric cardiology. The sources consulted contain no detailed record of the health institutions established in the first decades of the Republic.

Preserving the Historic Fabric

The second important aspect of the Republican period is that the city has been able to keep its Seljuk and Ottoman heritage largely standing. The monuments listed by the TDV still form the main line of the city: the Burmalı Minare Mosque (1237-1247), the Gökmedrese Mosque (1266-1267), the Gümüşlü Mosque (1326), the Beyazıt Pasha Mosque (1414-1419), the Yörgüç Pasha Mosque (1430), the Mosque and Complex of Bayezid II (1486), the Hatuniye Mosque (1510) and the Dârülhadis Mosque (1502). The old houses are a separate part of this heritage. The wooden mansions of the Yalıboyu, the Hazeranlar Mansion built in 1865 and the Hatuniye Mosque beside it make up the familiar image of the city's skyline. The Amasya Castle stands on Mount Harşena, and the royal tombs in the rock directly below it.

Not every part of this heritage was preserved. The clock tower that Ziya Pasha had built in 1865 on the Nergis Bridge was demolished in February 1940 on the grounds that it obstructed the construction of the Hükümet Bridge; it was rebuilt in 2002, faithful to the original. The accounts of the damage before its demolition differ: the municipality's page on the city's history mentions an earthquake seventy-five years after the tower was built, while Wikipedia writes that the tower was badly damaged in the 1938 earthquake. The Low Bridge (Alçak Köprü), built in the Roman period to connect the area around the castle with the opposite bank of the Yeşilırmak, had the piers of its four arches buried over time by the rising riverbed; in 1865 piers were built above the arches, and the bridge has survived to the present.

Museums are one of the new forms of this heritage. The Hazeranlar Mansion is used as an Ethnography Museum; the Tomb of Sultan Mesud lies in the garden of the Amasya Archaeology Museum; the Saraydüzü Barracks has been converted into the National Struggle Museum and Congress Center. The Miniature Amasya Museum, opened in 2010, is a work that shows the city as it was in 1914 to scale and is said to be the largest city model in Turkey in terms of scale. Besides these, the Museum of the Princes, the medical museum bearing the name of Sabuncuoğlu, the Ferhat and Şirin Minstrels' Museum and the Kara Mustafa Pasha Bath are among the visited buildings of the city. Part of the restored Yalıboyu houses now serves as boutique hotels and restaurants in old mansions, and the rock tombs and the castle are lit at night. The sources gathered here contain no reliable figure for how far these investments have raised tourism income; it is nonetheless the general view that cultural tourism holds a growing place in the local economy.

Daily Life and the City Today

Amasya today is a provincial center of about 342 thousand people, with its center at 411 meters above sea level and lying 336 kilometers from Ankara, 671 from Istanbul and 131 from Samsun. The province is administered by a governor appointed from the center; forty-two governors have served since 1923. The mayoralty has changed hands among about thirty names since 1923; according to the lists, members of the Republican People's Party, the Democrat Party, the Justice Party, the Motherland Party, the True Path Party, the Nationalist Movement Party and the Justice and Development Party have held the office at different times, and Turgay Sevindi, elected in 2024, is the present mayor.

Citing the 1989 statistics of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, the TDV writes that the province had 550 mosques, 132 of them in provincial and district centers and 418 in towns and villages. This figure is also a reminder that Amasya has both an urban and a rural character: a quarter of the province's people still live in towns and villages. Fish and bread on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, poppy-seed bread, toyga soup and hasuda dessert are well-known flavors of the region. Lake Borabay, the Yedikuğular Bird Paradise and the Terziköy, Hamamözü and Gözlek thermal springs are the notable points of the city's nature tourism. All of these places existed long before the Republic; their promotion, protection and accessibility is the work of this period.

A great advantage for protecting the historic fabric is that the city is squeezed into a narrow valley. The TDV writes of the city's inability to grow, because of its physical conditions, as a shortcoming; yet the same constraint may be one of the reasons the historic center has not been exposed to rapid construction. The city has remained one of the rare Anatolian towns in which Seljuk and Ottoman monuments stand together on both sides of the river. The price of this is limited industry and employment, and the migration trend in the population tables shows that price in numbers.

Chronology

12 June 1919: Mustafa Kemal arrives in Amasya.

21-22 June 1919: The Amasya Circular is prepared and sent to the country by telegraph.

29 October 1923: The Republic is proclaimed.

1923-1924: Amasya acquires provincial status; according to the TDV the date of its becoming a province is 20 April 1924.

3 March 1924: The Law on the Unification of Education is passed.

1925: The Amasya Museum is founded.

1927: In the first general census of the Republic the population of the central district is 60,479.

1928: With the adoption of the new alphabet, the Nation Schools open.

1930: The railway line is connected to Samsun.

1932: The People's Houses begin to be founded.

1940: The Amasya Clock Tower is demolished.

1954: The Amasya Sugar Factory is founded and the facilities of the Meat and Fish Authority are built.

1974-1975: The Faculty of Education and the Vocational School open.

1981: These units are attached to Ondokuz Mayıs University.

1980: The Amasya Archaeological Museum opens in its present building.

2002: The Clock Tower is rebuilt.

17 March 2006: Amasya University is founded.

2008: Amasya-Merzifon Airport enters service.

2010: The Miniature Amasya Museum opens.

2021-2022: Many dishes of Amasya cuisine are registered with a geographical indication.

Sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources