Damlaçimen, which appears in Ottoman documents under the name Çoran, is the southernmost of the villages on the eastern slope of Karadağ that the Gökçeli Yörüks used as winter quarters. The clerk who carried out the census of 1831 made a separate note in the register that the village elders did not consider themselves members of the Gökçeli tribe; this small entry is the most interesting document on the village's past. Damlaçimen acquired a municipality in the Republican period and returned to village status with the local elections of 2014 because its population had stayed below two thousand. With 568 inhabitants in 2025, it is today one of the more populous villages of Göynücek.

The Name

The former name of Damlaçimen is given as Çoran in Bekir Başalan's study of the changes in the place names of Amasya. Başalan notes that in some of these changes in Göynücek the old name was echoed; Çoran-Damlaçimen, however, is one of the cases where an entirely new name with no sound link to the old one was chosen. The only view on the origin of the name Çoran belongs to Sabit Genç. Genç points out that there was a section called Çungar among the Uluyörük, that the name Çoran bears at least a phonetic resemblance to it, and he offers as a conceivable possibility that the villagers may have descended from the Tatars of Mongol origin who also lived around Amasya. This is merely a suggestion; Genç himself records it as a possibility without any claim to certainty.

Çoran and the Gökçeli Community

Çoran was recorded as one of the winter quarters of the Gökçeli community, which belonged to the Orta Pâre branch of the Uluyörük. As Genç reports, the community's villages were strung along the eastern slopes of Karadağ from south to north in the order of today's Damlaçimen, Karayakup, Gökçeli, Göynücek and Yassıkışla; in summer the flocks were taken up to the pastures on the summits of Karadağ. In the survey of 1576 the community's winter quarters such as Gökçeli, Yassıkışla and Sığırçayı are recorded, but Çoran and Göynücek are not mentioned; Genç concludes from this that the two villages may not yet have been founded in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. In 1695 it appears among the villages listed under "Kabile-i Gökçeli" as "Çoran-Karacaviran".

The village's relationship with the community is not beyond dispute. In the census register of 1831 the people of Çoran were counted as members of the Gökçeli tribe, but the clerk wrote a note at the head of the village entry to the following effect: apart from the persons shown in the register there is no one from the Gökçeli tribe in the village; the elder of the tribe claimed that the villagers were Gökçeli, while the villagers asserted that they did not belong to the tribe; for the time being the entry has been made in this way on condition that births and deaths be reported to the tribal elder. Genç finds this entry interesting because it shows that the villagers saw themselves as outside the community. The same register lists the families living in Çoran as follows: Mürseloğlu, Molla Alioğlu, Allahverdioğlu, Abdurahmanoğlu, Kanlı Ömeroğlu, Abdullahoğlu, Halil Kâhya oğlu, Kör Ömeroğlu, Sarı Çobanoğlu, Yenioğlu, Uzun Alioğlu, Abbasoğlu, Dahlanoğlu, İsmailoğlu, Cocikoğlu, Papaz Cocikoğlu, Öksüzoğlu, Kör Cumaoğlu, Nasuhoğlu, Kulaksızoğlu, Ecdadoğlu, İmamoğlu and Eceloğlu.

Population and Livelihood, 1831-1845

In 1831, 82 males were counted in Çoran, and in 1838 again 82 males were recorded in 31 households. In the temettuat survey of 1844-45 the number of households rises to 40. In those years only Köseeyüp and Göynücek, among the community's seven villages, were larger than Çoran. According to the temettuat register the village had 350 dönüms of sown and 293 dönüms of fallow land. The annual harvest was 186.5 kile of wheat and 196.5 kile of barley; while wheat exceeded barley in every other village of the community, in Çoran barley came first. In viticulture the village stands clearly apart: vineyards are recorded in all the community's villages, yet not a single vineyard is entered for Çoran.

The livestock shows the same divergence. The village had 66 oxen, 94 cows, 41 calves, 16 young bulls, 14 water-buffalo oxen, 9 water-buffalo cows and 10 buffalo calves. There were no sheep at all among the small livestock; instead 327 goats and 187 kids were kept. For carrying loads 18 donkeys and one mare were recorded. Genç specifically notes that Çoran differed from its neighbours in its choice of small livestock as it did in viticulture. The documents do not explain whether there was any link between the villagers' refusal to count themselves as tribe members and this different economy; still, the two facts standing side by side are striking.

The Municipal Years and Recent History

Mehmet and Nesrin Özsait list Damlaçimen among the towns and villages of Göynücek that they surveyed systematically in their prehistoric surface surveys of 1987 and 1989; their report records no mound or prehistoric settlement in this village. In the Republican period Damlaçimen gained municipal status, but the date on which the municipality was founded could not be found. In the list annexed to Law no. 6360 of 2012, Damlaçimen and Gediksaray, both in the Göynücek district of Amasya, appear together among the municipalities whose population was below two thousand according to the 2011 results and which were turned into villages with effect from the next local elections. The municipality was thus abolished with the local elections of 2014. Today the village has a health post.

Population

In the series kept after the change to village status, Damlaçimen's population stands at 1,094 in 2013. The figure fell to 994 a year later and to 706 in 2015, then fluctuated between 700 and 900 in the following years, reaching 910 in 2018. The decline has quickened over the last two years, bringing the population down to 675 in 2024 and 568 in 2025; this latest count records 274 men and 294 women. In twelve years the village has lost almost half its population.

Chronology

1695: "Çoran-Karacaviran" is listed among the villages of the Gökçeli tribe.

1831: The census records 82 males; the village elders assert that they do not belong to the Gökçeli tribe.

1838: The census records 31 households and 82 males.

1844-45: The temettuat survey records 40 households, farming without vineyards and small livestock based on goats.

1989: The village is surveyed in Özsait's prehistoric survey of Göynücek.

2014: Under Law no. 6360 the municipality of Damlaçimen is abolished and the settlement becomes a village.

Bibliography

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