Amasya's high country can seem overshadowed by the historic town in the valley floor, yet a considerable part of the province consists of highland pastures (yayla) where livestock are taken in summer and villages meet one another. The lowest of these pastures lie at around 1,200 metres, while the highest average 1,850 metres. Because the province sits in the belt where the Black Sea Region meets Central Anatolia, the vegetation of two distinct climates can be seen side by side at these altitudes. Nor have the highlands ever been mere grazing grounds: a century ago the butter and cheese of Akdağ were known throughout the old land of Pontus, the name of the Kabaoğuz villages carries the settlement history of an Oghuz tribe, and on the slopes of İnegöl Dağı lie silver mines worked since Seljuk times.

Where Two Climates Meet

The Amasya highlands lie in a zone where the Black Sea climate gives way to the influence of the Central Anatolian climate. The transition is reflected directly in the plant life. Species of the humid Black Sea environment grow beside the drought-tolerant plants of Central Anatolia on different slopes of the same pasture. Botanists describe this as a transition belt where the Euxine section of the Euro-Siberian floristic region touches the Irano-Turanian region; in the floristic surveys carried out on the province's mountains, elements of the two regions appear in almost equal proportions. When the meadows come into bloom in spring, this diversity is at its most visible, which is why the pastures are most often visited in spring and summer for botanical observation and hiking.

The province's highlands are scattered over the ridges of different mountains, and most take their names from the mountain they lie on. Official records list eight groups of pastures. Among them are the Kabaoğuz highlands on the western side of Tavşan Dağı (average 1,400 metres), the Tavşandağı highlands on the plateaus of the same mountain (1,500 metres), the Akdağ highlands on the Akdağ summits (1,850 metres), the Sarıçiçek highlands east of Karaömer Dağı (1,650 metres), the Boğalı highlands on Sakarat Dağı (1,850 metres), the Çatalçam highlands on the high plateaus of Eğerli Dağı within Amasya's borders (1,400 metres) and the İnegöl highlands on İnegöl Dağı (1,600 metres). The eighth, the Destek highlands, lies on the high plateaus north of the Destek stream in the Canik Mountains (around 1,200 metres) and is the only one named not after a mountain but after a stream. Beginning on the stream's banks, this pasture spreads over a wider area along its upper reaches. The Ziyaret pasture is also counted among the highland areas of the district.

The Amasya Highlands in Older Records

The place of the highlands in the province's economy is plain in the pages of Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, who described the sanjak of Amasya district by district at the beginning of the twentieth century. Writing of Akdağ, Hüsameddin first lists the abundance of its pastures, the convenience of its winter quarters, the plenty of its water and the healthfulness of its air; he then adds that most of the sheep flocks of the Amasya liva grazed there in summer and that its butter, cheese and yogurt enjoyed extraordinary fame in the land of Pontus. He makes a similar judgement of the İnegöl Mountains west of Gümüşhacıköy: they are high, their forest renowned, their pastures prized and their waters abundant, so that they meet a large share of the essential needs of the districts of Hacıköyü and Osmancık. He also records that the eastern flanks of Taşan Dağı, today's Tavşan Dağı, which encloses the north of Merzifon, are forest and pasture.

In accounts of earlier periods the highlands often appear as a matter of power and livelihood. Hüsameddin writes that after the Mongol invasion, in the 1240s, Tatar begs and tribes poured into the province of Amasya, seizing the best pastures and fields and driving out their rightful owners. He also relates that in the fourteenth century Celâleddîn Taşan Bey, son of Emîrdâd, who ruled over Köprü, Havza and Merzifon, lived in the high mountains and pastures between Köprü and Merzifon, and that these mountains came to be called "Taşan Dağı" after him. The highlands were places that Turkmen begs held both as grazing and as home, and whose changing of hands had political consequences. The fact that the Kabaoğuz pastures lie today on the western slope of this very mountain draws a direct line between the two histories.

The İnegöl Highland

The İnegöl highland lies on İnegöl Dağı, within the lands of the village of Güvemözü in the district of Gümüşhacıköy. It stands at around 1,600 metres and is some 130 kilometres from the provincial centre. The pasture is used chiefly by the villagers of Güvemözü, who live by stock-raising; the high meadows serve as summer grazing for their animals.

The Geography of İnegöl Dağı

The mountain's geography helps explain the character of the pasture. North of Gümüşhacıköy run the Taşan Mountains, a branch of the Canik range, while the İnegöl Mountains extend to the west and south-west; the district centre was founded in the middle of the broad plain between these two massifs. The district's highest point is İnegöl Tepesi at 1,864 metres. The Gümüş stream, which rises in the İnegöl Mountains, joins the smaller streams around it and flows into the Tersakan, a tributary of the Yeşilırmak; another stream descending from the west of the mountain takes the name Akpınar towards Hamamözü. In the district's upland areas winters are cold and wet, and the forests consist mostly of beech, oak, elm and various pines. In the district centre the mean annual temperature is 11 degrees, the July mean 20.4 degrees and the January mean 0.5 degrees; average annual rainfall is around 435 millimetres, most of it falling in winter rather than summer. Meadows, rangeland and summer pastures make up about 23 per cent of the district's land, which shows the place of stock-raising in the economy of Gümüşhacıköy. The highlands form the highest and coolest part of these grazing lands, to which the animals are taken in summer.

Vegetation

İnegöl Dağı is one of the best-studied mountains in the province from a botanical point of view. Between 2005 and 2008 Cengiz Yıldırım and Mahmut Kılınç collected some 1,700 plant specimens from the mountain and its surroundings, and their identifications established the presence of 661 species and subspecies in 291 genera belonging to 71 families. Of these taxa, 103 belong to the Euro-Siberian, 99 to the Irano-Turanian and 43 to the Mediterranean floristic region; the rest are species spread over more than one region or of unknown region. The near-equal proportions of Euro-Siberian and Irano-Turanian elements express in figures the mountain's position between two climates. The largest families are the daisy family (87 taxa), the legumes (69), the mint family (60), the mustard family (41) and the borage family (34). Seventy-seven of the plants recorded on the mountain, about 11.6 per cent, are endemic to Turkey; some of the flowers that open on the pastures in early summer grow wild in no other country.

A study of the forest vegetation carried out by the same researchers between 2006 and 2009 also reveals the structure of the forests surrounding the pastures. Examination of forty sample plots identified four distinct forest communities: one dominated by Scots pine, one dominated by black pine, and two beech communities formed by oriental beech together with hornbeam or other companion species. All four associations were described by science for the first time on this mountain. The coolness of the pasture owes much to the pine and beech forests that clothe its slopes.

Old Settlements on the Mountain's Slopes

The slopes of İnegöl Dağı also carry the history of the villages that go up to the pasture. According to Hüsameddin, the nahiye of Hamamözü on the mountain's eastern and northern slopes was once inhabited by the Göçeri or Göçerli tribe of the Turkish clans; some Çepni Turks had also been settled there, and the names of the local villages of Çetmi and Göçeri survived as corrupted forms of these communities' names. The small town of Gümüş, founded on the eastern foot of the same mountain about two kilometres south of Hacıköyü, takes its name from the silver mines in the hills and mountains behind it. Hüsameddin notes that the name has appeared in the records since at least 575 (1179-80), that the mine superintendents are historically known from 648 (1250-51), and that the claim in some periodicals that the mine was discovered around 1140 is mistaken. Coins were struck in the town in the Seljuk and early Ottoman periods. The mountain's forests, pastures and mines together sustained the settlements on its slopes for centuries.

The meadows offer wide views and cool air. These qualities make the pasture suitable not only for stock-raising but also for camping, picnics and hiking. For those who wish to leave the summer heat of the valley floor behind and climb higher, it is a quiet choice.

The Akdağ Highlands

The Akdağ highlands stretch across the summits of Akdağ at an average altitude of 1,850 metres and are among the highest groups of pastures in the province; only the Boğalı highlands reach the same height. Surrounded by pine, hornbeam and oak, the area stays cool even on hot summer days thanks to its altitude. Since it can be reached by road from the centre of Amasya, it is among the most visited of the highlands, and interest peaks in the summer months.

The Akdağ Nahiye and the Pasture's Old Fame

In the Ottoman administrative order Akdağ lay at the centre of a nahiye that bore its name. According to Hüsameddin, the Akdağ nahiye, one of the four nahiyes of the district of Amasya, covered the eastern parts of the town; its centre was the village of Akviran, and it took its name from lying on the slopes of the mountain long known as Akdağ, which runs from east to west. Hüsameddin gives the mountain's height as "about twelve hundred metres"; present-day measurements, however, put the pasture plateaus at 1,850 metres and the highest parts of the mountain above 2,000 metres. The town of Lâdik lies on the mountain's northern slope, and Amasya's Ziyare (Ziyaret) quarter at the foot of a small ridge that branches off Akdağ and descends towards the Yeşilırmak. The fame of Akdağ's butter, cheese and yogurt mentioned above came from this nahiye.

The produce of the pasture made its way down to the town's market. Recalling the greengrocer's shop of Madenüzcü Hacı Mustafa Ağa in the memoirs of his childhood Amasya, Osman Fevzi Olcay writes that the highlanders of Ziyere were among the shop's regular customers and that the finest cream, milk and yogurt came there. Olcay's own family came originally from the village of Kızılkışlacık in the Akdağ nahiye. The villages of Akdağ also gave men to Amasya's learned life. From the village of Başalan in the nahiye came the Halveti sheikh Muhyiddîn Mehmed Akdağî, who built a dervish lodge in the village and arranged its endowments. One of his sons, Bedreddîn Mahmûd Efendi, became kadiasker of Anatolia, and another, Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Efendi, became a Halveti sheikh in Amasya; in 912 (1506-07), on the petition of Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), the village of Alakise, his father's birthplace, was granted to Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Efendi by imperial decree, and he endowed it so that half its revenue went to his lodge in Amasya and half to the upkeep of the mosque he had built at Alakise. From the village of Akviran came Akdağlı Şeyh Hacı Mustafa Efendi, one of the well-known teachers of the eighteenth century.

The mountain's steep and wooded terrain also made it a refuge throughout history. Hüsameddin relates that in 1069 (1658-59) Kelekcizâde Hasan Bey was appointed subaşı of the Akdağ nahiye and charged with clearing out the brigands who had appeared there, and that his success in this task raised him to the post of alaybeyi of Amasya. In the month of Zilkade 1216 (March 1802), Kutoğlu Hüseyin Paşa of Amasya, who had risen from commander of the Janissaries to the rank of vizier, took refuge and fortified himself on the slopes of Akdağ when an order for his execution was issued; surrounded by the forces of Hasan Bey, the deputy governor of Amasya, and of Tayyar Mahmud Paşa, governor of Trabzon, he surrendered without a fight and his head was cut off and sent to Istanbul.

Vegetation

Akdağ is listed among Turkey's important plant areas and has been the subject of several thorough studies in recent years. In a study of 1,500 moss specimens collected between 2009 and 2011 from 37 stations at different altitudes on the mountain, 178 taxa belonging to 26 families were identified, two of them reported as first records for Turkey. The researchers attribute this richness to the area's humid and mild climate, its many microhabitats and the coexistence of differing ecological conditions. The station records of the same study also allow the mountain's vegetation belts to be traced step by step. On the lower slopes Turkish red pine and Hartwiss oak predominate, on the middle slopes black pine, and on the humid north-facing slopes Scots pine with oriental beech and hornbeam; at around 1,050-1,250 metres Taurus cedar also appears alongside black pine. High mountain meadows begin at around 1,750 metres, and above 2,000 metres the trees give way to cushion-forming thorny plants such as milk-vetch and prickly thrift. The grazing grounds of the Akdağ highlands lie in this meadow belt between the forest and the bare summit.

Camping, Sport and Festivals

The Karakese area of the pasture has places suitable for pitching tents and picnicking. Besides day visits, it is possible to camp and stay longer. Its rugged terrain, dirt tracks and broad open plateaus have also made Akdağ a suitable ground for car and motor sports. Off-road and motocross events are organised here from time to time by clubs and associations, and amateur and professional drivers use the tracks. This is why Akdağ is considered one of the province's best areas for outdoor sports.

In summer, local associations hold highland festivals. These festivals, with concerts and traditional events, gather the people of the surrounding villages on the pasture. According to one source, the festivals on Akdağ draw enough interest to be held at least twice a year.

The Akdağ highlands can also be reached from Suluova, and the area is best known for the Suluova Akdağ Highland Festival. The festival is organised by the Akdağ Association; it was announced that it would be held for the eighteenth time in August 2026, with the Champion Mahmut Demir Children's Karakucak Wrestling Championship of Turkey on the programme. At the festival people dance the halay and hold local games and contests. The association's president describes the festival as the largest civil society event in Suluova and one of the province's leading festivals.

The Feral Horses

Another well-known feature of the Akdağ highlands is its yılkı, or feral horses. On the pastures between the villages of Karakese and Seyfe known as Ovacık and Domuz Ovacığı, horses no longer used for riding or carrying have lived in the wild for centuries; local tradition even speaks of a "saint of the yılkı" in this place. According to Yılmaz Keten, president of the Suluova Akdağ Association, horses and mules were released into the wild from the 1990s onwards with the spread of machinery, and only the horses survived, thanks to their herd instinct; the mules died out because they could not breed, the donkeys because they could not adapt to the conditions. Keten reports that in 2002 and 2005 he counted thirty-three horses among the feral herds, some still with halters round their necks and hobbles on their legs. Three herds live in the area today.

In summer the horses scatter to suitable pastures, and in winter they stay on the pastures between Karakese and Seyfe; in snow and storms they shelter in the woodland around Ayoğlu, Taylı yayla, Ovacık, Domuz Ovacığı and Kocacık. When the snow is deep they feed on beech, oak, acorn and pine branches, and paw through the snow to reach plants such as milk-vetch, mullein and couch grass. It is striking that the trees and plants the horses live on through the winter match the species that botanical studies list for the mountain's upper reaches. Keten argues that these horses are valuable for the conservation of the Anatolian horse breed and should be protected in their natural habitat.

The Kabaoğuz Highlands and Aphaz

The Kabaoğuz highlands lie in the district of Gümüşhacıköy on the western slope of Tavşan Dağı, at an average altitude of 1,400 metres. The part of the pasture where the festivals are held is known as Aphaz (spelled Abhaz or Apaz in some sources). On the slopes around the pasture stand the Kabaoğuz villages, which take their name from the area. The number of villages and their altitudes vary from source to source. The Kabaoğuz people's own association gives the total as eighteen villages and states that their altitudes rise from 960 metres at Ulubel to 1,550 metres on the slopes around Aphaz; a rural architecture study published in 2025, however, counts ten villages, Bademli, Çal, Dumanlı, Kağnıcı, Kızık, Kızılca, Kutluca, Derbentobruğu, Pusacık and Saraycık, as the Kabaoğuz villages, and writes that the villages lie at 950-1,100 metres and the Aphaz and Dumanlı pastures at around 1,600 metres. Part of the difference may stem from the association also counting settlements founded later or that feel attached to Kabaoğuz. Çal, the village farthest from the district centre, is 30 kilometres from Gümüşhacıköy and 100 kilometres from Amasya; the nearest is Sallar, 8 kilometres from Gümüşhacıköy and 78 kilometres from Amasya.

Tavşan Dağı

The name of Tavşan Dağı, on which the pastures lie, also carries a history. Hüsameddin relates that this mountain is the largest in the sanjak of Amasya after Akdağ, that it starts from the Tersakan stream and runs from east to west as far as the Kızılırmak at Osmancık, and that with its length of about forty-five kilometres, broad in the east and narrow in the west, it resembles a coffin. According to him, the mountain was the estate of Taşan Bey, a descendant of the Seljuk Husrev Şah who lived at Kedeğra. After the disappearance of Timurtaş, governor of Rum, in 727 (1327), Taşan Bey took advantage of the ensuing turmoil to found a small principality, submitted to Eretna Bey, and after Eretna's death recognised no one and made this mountain his home. That is why it was called "Taşan Dağı"; "Tavşan Dağı" is a later corruption of the name. Taşan Bey's children and grandchildren, such as Bâlî, Ahmed, Ali, Hasan and Şâhin Beys, lived on the mountain and endowed part of it. No other source supporting this explanation by Hüsameddin has been found.

The mountain's vegetation shows a richness similar to that of İnegöl Dağı. A floristic survey on the Merzifon side recorded 594 species and subspecies belonging to 77 families, 65 of them endemic. Here the share of Euro-Siberian elements, at 23.7 per cent, is roughly double that of Irano-Turanian elements (12 per cent); with its position closer to the Black Sea, Tavşan Dağı leans more towards the humid side of the two climates. Four-fifths of the plants are perennial herbs that pass the winter with buds at ground level, and it is these that form the dense, hardy turf of the pasture meadows.

The Kızık Tribe and the Kabakoz Nahiye

The name Kabaoğuz is tied to the settlement history of the area. In Ottoman records the district was known as the Kızık nahiye, named after the Kızık clan settled there. The Kızık were one of the tribes of the Bozok branch of the twenty-four Oghuz tribes. According to Faruk Sümer, at the beginning of the fourteenth century Rashid al-Din placed the Kızık among the sons of Yıldız Han of the Bozok, wrote that their totem bird was the eagle (tavşancıl) and that their name meant "strong and strict in observing the law". Hüsameddin, too, in listing the Oghuz tribes, explains Kızık as a fierce person, utterly earnest and strong in his work, adds that a raging lion was called "kızık", and notes that there were many nahiyes and villages bearing the name in Anatolia, the Kızık nahiye in the sanjak of Amasya being among the largest. As Sümer established, twenty-eight villages belonging to the Kızık are recorded in the sixteenth-century tax registers, and sixteen of them have survived to the present under the same name; in this respect the Kızık rank first among the tribes that best preserved their place names in Anatolia. A village bearing this name in Gümüşhacıköy is still among the Kabaoğuz villages today.

The name of the nahiye later took the form Kabakoz, and then Kabaoğuz. Hüsameddin writes that in his day the Kabakoz nahiye covered the north-west of the district, that the Kızık clan lived there, that it had formerly been called the "Kızık nahiye" and later the "Kabakoz nahiye", and that there were villages named after the tribal chiefs Korkud and Kutluca Beys; the nahiye was later merged into the Saraycık nahiye. The meaning of the word Oğuz is itself debated. Some scholars derive it from "ok", meaning tribe or clan, combined with the plural suffix "z"; others consider it synonymous with oyrat, meaning unruly. In Anatolian dialects, however, the word is also used to mean mild-mannered and dignified.

The Founding Story of the Villages

Findings based on Faruk Sümer's research show that when the place names of the sixteenth-century sanjaks of Amasya, Canik, Çorum, Karahisar-ı Şarkî, Kastamonu, Kengırı, Sivas and Trabzon are examined, twenty-one of the twenty-four Oghuz tribes had settled in this region, with a total of 268 place names belonging to these tribes. Fourteen of them settled in Amasya, where twenty-six place names belonging to these tribes have been identified. According to local tradition, the Kabaoğuz villages were founded by men sent by Mehmed II (the Conqueror) to Turkify the area. Kutlu Bey settled in the valley between Kızık and Çal, Ahmet Bey at Pusacık, and Dumanlı Dede where the village of Dumanlı stands today. Kutlu Bey's village was called İğde-i Çal; but when the site proved unsuitable for settlement, one family went to Kızık and another to Kızılca Köy, the village split into three, most of it moving uphill to found Çal, some going to Kutluca and some forming today's Kağnıcı. In later years families who left these villages and other Turkmen tribes who arrived afterwards founded the remaining villages. One is tempted to think that the Kutluca Bey named by Hüsameddin and the Kutlu Bey of the local tradition may be the same person, but there is no record to show it; nor has any document been found confirming that this tradition belongs to the reign of Mehmed II.

The Kabaoğuz settlement story fits into the wider frame of the Turkification of Anatolia. After the victory at Manzikert a heavy migration into Anatolia began, and the Seljuk period was the time when these communities put down roots. It is told that the Oghuz tribes who settled along the Black Sea coast and in its hinterland Turkified the region by both conquest and settlement, and that under Mehmed II the Black Sea passed largely under Turkish control. The local founding story of the Kabaoğuz villages is a small-scale example of this process. For a long time the livelihood of these communities of nomadic origin rested on stock-raising; the pattern of going up to the pasture in summer and spending the winter in the village was the continuation, in settled life, of their ancestors' nomadic existence.

Sixteenth-Century Records and the Men of Kabakoz

The area's condition in the sixteenth century can be traced through the tax registers. In 1520 the Kabakoz nahiye consisted of seven villages and one hamlet, with 191 registered households and a population of 292. In 1576 the number of villages and hamlets was unchanged, while the households had risen to 248 and the population to 452. These figures are counts of the taxable population. The largest village in the nahiye was recorded as Kanlıca (Kağnıcı), and the one producing the most revenue as Bosacık (Pucacık).

In the following centuries the name Kabakoz also appears as the epithet of men who came from here and became known in the surrounding towns. Hüsameddin lists Kabakozlu Ali Ağa among the notables of the district of Gümüş in 1608-09. The same author also gives a detailed life of Hacı İbrâhim Efendi, son of Mehmed, from the village of Kabakoz on the western foot of Taşan Dağı. İbrâhim Efendi studied in Köprü and Amasya, taught for years in Köprü, served as mufti of Köprü for some sixteen years over three terms from 1260 (1844) onwards, and died in 1287 (1870-71) at over eighty years of age; Hüsameddin remembers him as a jurist and a scholar whose word carried weight. His sons also became teachers, and his grandson İbrâhim Zühdü Efendi joined the ranks of the madrasa professors of Istanbul. Kabakozlu Hacı Ömer Efendi, one of the scholars of Köprü, and Kızıklı Hacı Ahmed Efendi, one of the scholars of Hacıköyü, also came from this nahiye. The settling of people from the mountain villages in the surrounding towns, the same migration whose descendants now meet again at the festivals, thus reaches back at least two centuries.

Migration and the Villages Today

The livelihood of these villages, built on mountainous ground, was stock-raising and forestry. Sheep and goats were kept, and farming was done mostly on a scale sufficient for the animals' needs; for a time tobacco growing, in which people of all ages worked, was also widespread. In time these resources could no longer support the growing population, and emigration from the villages began. Those who left settled first in Gümüşhacıköy, then in Merzifon and Suluova. The association estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people from the Kabaoğuz villages live in these three districts. Having left their villages, the Kabaoğuz people founded associations in the big cities and made it a custom to gather again every year at the highland festivals.

The loss of population in the villages is clearly reflected in the figures. In the 1990 census 6,062 people lived in the Kabaoğuz villages; the number fell to 4,424 in 2000 and, according to address-based records, to 2,137 in 2021 and 1,989 in 2024. Roughly speaking, the population halves every decade. With the emigration of the young and declining profits, tobacco growing has been abandoned altogether; in recent years the production of rosehip and walnut and the supply of milk and dairy products to local cooperatives have come to the fore. Although stock-raising is no longer carried on with large flocks as before, the custom of going up to the pasture in May continues; this migration, however, is now kept alive more as a cultural habit than for production. Among the villages, Derbentobruğu is one of those that has best preserved its rural identity. Most houses in this village of about 100 households and 200 people are now used only in the summer months, and its permanent population is largely over fifty; the village's own pasture is known as Yakın Yayla. Architectural researchers state that the village has largely kept the authenticity of its traditional fabric but is under threat because of depopulation.

The Kabaoğuz Highland Festivals

The festivals are organised by the Kabaoğuz Villages Culture, Solidarity and Development Association. The event lasts three days and is held at the end of July or the beginning of August; in 2023 it fell in mid-August. The thirtieth festival was held on the Aphaz pasture from 31 July to 2 August 2026 and brought thousands of people together. The twenty-ninth took place on 25-27 July 2025, the twenty-eighth on 26-28 July 2024 and the twenty-seventh on 18-20 August 2023. The event could not be held in 2020 and 2021 and resumed in 2022 with its twenty-sixth edition. The twenty-fourth festival had been held on 27-29 July 2018. The thirty-first festival is expected to take place from 30 July to 1 August 2027.

The programme opens on the first day with the traditional festival bonfire. In 2026 Sevda Kılıç performed on the second day and İsmail Türüt, a well-known voice of Black Sea music, on the last, and horon circles formed on the pasture to Türüt's songs. At the official opening the association's president, Mehmet Çelik, said that the festival had grown from a seed planted thirty years earlier and that they would continue to keep alive the traditions inherited from their forebears and pass this solidarity on to the young. Members of the official delegation toured the tents, listening to the requests of expatriates and local people.

One of the festival's distinctive features is the office of festival ağa. In an auction held after the official speeches, the highest bidder receives the title of that year's festival ağa. In 2026 the incumbent ağa, businessman Halil İbrahim Dursun, kept his title by again making the highest bid. The other major part of the programme is karakucak wrestling, opened with a recitation from the Qur'an and wrestlers' prayers. The wrestling ground opens in the morning with bouts between young wrestlers and closes with the final for the title of chief wrestler; in 2026 Harun Kılıç became chief wrestler by defeating Ömer Faruk Kalender in the final.

The festival's real function is to be a meeting place for people who have left their villages. The association states that through these gatherings the Kabaoğuz people maintain their attachment to their land and their people, and that in the places they have migrated to they try to keep their customs and traditions alive. Considering that the population of the villages halves every decade, the festival, which gathers thousands on the pasture for three days a year, has become the strongest bond carrying the shared memory of Kabaoğuz.

The Highlands Today

The Amasya highlands are under pressure today. According to official assessments, in recent years excessive use of agricultural chemicals and fertiliser, overgrazing and the clearing of fields have worn down the vegetation of the pastures. On the upper slopes the soil has eroded to such an extent that the bedrock is almost exposed. In the forests at the edge of the pastures young trees are not replacing the old ones, and the tree line moves lower year by year. In emptying villages such as Kabaoğuz the problem appears in reverse: as the flocks shrink, the traditional highland system and the village architecture that stood with it are left untended.

The need to protect the highlands, to monitor careless farming practices and to regulate grazing is frequently voiced. Nature lovers and environmental organisations also stress the importance of raising awareness among local people. The recording of more than sixty endemic plant species on each of İnegöl and Tavşan Dağı, the discovery on Akdağ of mosses new to Turkey and the continued life of the feral herds on these pastures show concretely the value of the highlands for the province's ecological balance and for nature tourism. That value turns the protection of these areas from a choice into a necessity.

Chronology

575 (1179-80): The name of the town of Gümüş, on the eastern foot of İnegöl Dağı, appears in the records.

648 (1250-51): Superintendents of the Gümüş silver mine are recorded from this date.

After 727 (1327): Taşan Bey makes today's Tavşan Dağı his home; the mountain comes to bear his name.

912 (1506-07): The village of Alakise in the Akdağ nahiye is granted to Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Efendi and endowed by him.

1520: 191 households are registered in seven villages and one hamlet of the Kabakoz nahiye.

1576: The number of households in the Kabakoz nahiye rises to 248.

1608-09: Kabakozlu Ali Ağa is named among the notables of the district of Gümüş.

1069 (1658-59): Kelekcizâde Hasan Bey is appointed subaşı of the Akdağ nahiye to clear out brigands.

March 1802: Kutoğlu Hüseyin Paşa is besieged on the slopes of Akdağ and surrenders.

1287 (1870-71): Hacı İbrâhim Efendi, mufti of Köprü from the village of Kabakoz, dies.

1990: The population of the Kabaoğuz villages is counted at 6,062.

2002 and 2005: Thirty-three horses are counted in the feral herds of Akdağ.

2005-2008: The flora of İnegöl Dağı is surveyed; 661 taxa and 77 endemic species are recorded.

2009-2011: The moss flora of Akdağ is surveyed; two species are recorded for Turkey for the first time.

2018: The twenty-fourth Kabaoğuz Highland Festival is held.

2020-2021: The Kabaoğuz festivals cannot be held.

2024: The population of the Kabaoğuz villages falls to 1,989.

2026: The thirtieth Kabaoğuz Highland Festival is held on the Aphaz pasture; the Suluova Akdağ Highland Festival is announced for its eighteenth edition.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 1-4, pp. 121, 187, 190-192, 209, 232, 397, 539, 684 (amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page187.html); vols. 6-8, pp. 23, 76, 576, 605 (amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/6-8/files/basic-html/page76.html). amasya.bel.tr
  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Hâtıraları.

Academic studies

  • Gümüşhacıköy District Governorate, "Tarihçe" (gumushacikoy.gov.tr/tarihce); Adnan Gürbüz, XVI. Yüzyılda Amasya Sancağı, Ankara 1993 (doctoral thesis).
  • Hasan Korkmaz, Erkan Yalçın, Ali Engin, Cengiz Yıldırım, "Tavşan Dağının (Amasya-Merzifon) Florası", Ot Sistematik Botanik Dergisi, 12/2 (2005), pp. 103-140.
  • "The Moss Flora of Akdağ Mountain (Amasya, Turkey)", The Scientific World Journal, 2014 (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284982).

Official sources

  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Yaylalar" (amasya.ktb.gov.tr/TR-59465/yaylalar.html).
  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Otomobil ve Motor Sporları - Akdağ Yaylası", Türkiye Kültür Portalı, Amasya tourism activities.
  • Gümüşhacıköy District Governorate, "İlçe Tanıtımı" (gumushacikoy.gov.tr/ilce-tanitimi).

Other sources

  • Faruk Sümer, "Kızık", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • Kabaoğuz Association, "Tarihçe" (kabaoguzlular.blogspot.com/2009/12/tarihce.html). kabaoguzlular.blogspot.com
  • Gülşah Büyükgüner Sönmez, Ebru Kishalı, "An Investigation into Rural Architecture and Cultural Continuity in the Kabaoğuz Villages", Heritages 2025, London 2025, pp. 371-383.
  • Cengiz Yıldırım, Mahmut Kılınç, "İnegöl Dağı (Gümüşhacıköy-Amasya, Türkiye) Florası", Biological Diversity and Conservation, 3/2 (2010), pp. 49-67; phytosociological study of the forest vegetation of İnegöl Dağı (Amasya-Türkiye) (2006-2009).
  • Yılmaz Keten, "Yılkı Atları Hikayesi", 13 March 2020; "Dernek Başkanından şenliğe davet", 8 August 2026.
  • "30. Kabaoğuz Yayla Şenlikleri", news report, 6 August 2026; Kabaoğuz Yayla Şenlikleri calendar (festivall.com.tr/kabaoguz-yayla-senlikleri).
  • "Amasya'nın Doğal Cennetleri", Merzifon Bilgi Gazetesi, 20 March 2025.

Online sources