Ellibeşevler is a neighborhood of Amasya whose name comes from a number. In official records it appears as Ellibeşevler Mahallesi; in everyday speech, in advertisements and on shop signs it is usually called 55 Evler ("55 Houses"). The literal meaning of the name is plain, yet the written record on the neighborhood itself is surprisingly thin. In the open sources that could be searched, no documented account of its founding date, its first residents or the origin of its name was found. The neighborhood is therefore known less through the thick histories of the old core districts than through present-day figures and recent public investment.

The Name and Its Use

In the sources the name lives side by side in two forms: the joined spelling Ellibeşevler and the numeral spelling 55 Evler. The park project that Amasya Municipality announced in early 2023 appears in the news report under the headline "55 Evler Yaşam Parkı" (55 Evler Life Park), while the mayor's statement calls it the "Ellibeşevler Yaşam Parkı." The two spellings can thus stand in for one another even within a single text. In official correspondence and population records the joined form is the standard one, while the public prefers the numeral form and carries the name as a short, memorable phrase.

The name means fifty-five houses. No source could be found, however, that shows which group of buildings, which year or which body (a cooperative, a public institution or the municipality) the number refers to. It is conceivable that a settlement of fifty-five dwellings was built at the outset, and that is a reasonable guess, but without a document it cannot be written as a fact. Many neighborhoods in Turkey that are known by a number arose in this way: the number of homes in a housing group gradually becomes, in the mouths of those who settle nearby, the name of the district. Whether that explanation holds for Ellibeşevler remains an open question until a local archive or an eyewitness account turns up. For whom the first houses behind the number were built, and in which years, lies within the same uncertainty.

Location and Size

Ellibeşevler belongs to the central district of Amasya. Compilation sites give its area as 0.788 square kilometers and its postal code as 05100. These figures are no substitute for an official administrative boundary. The figures make clear that the neighborhood is spread over a small area yet holds a crowded population.

The general geography of Amasya is well known: the city is a narrow valley stretching on both banks of the Yeşilırmak, at the foot of Harşena and the slopes known for their rock-cut tombs, and settlement has grown by following the river as far as the valley allows. A documented description of the boundaries by which Ellibeşevler is set apart within this valley, or of the direction in which it extends, could not be found. Real-estate and map sites place the neighborhood around Adnan Menderes Avenue and mention a park called Botanik Parkı within it; this information comes from listing sites and should not be read as definitive boundary information.

Its Place in the Historical Records

For Amasya's old neighborhoods the basic sources are works such as Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi, Ottoman endowment records and the Islamic court registers. Ellibeşevler does not appear in these sources as a registered neighborhood under this name. That does not mean the land was previously empty; it means only that no documented history under the neighborhood's present name and identity has been found.

That it is a settlement that took shape in recent times is a possibility, not established fact. In this respect Ellibeşevler should be considered a separate category from the old core neighborhoods, such as Hacılar Meydanı or Bahçeleriçi, which are described through endowment deeds and court registers. The past of the old neighborhoods is reflected in endowment and court records; the story of 55 Evler, by contrast, has to be sought less in documents than in today's records and in the memory of its residents.

Population and Density

Ellibeşevler is among the most populous neighborhoods of central Amasya. According to a compilation based on TÜİK address-based population data, the neighborhood's population was 8,611 in 2012, 9,016 in 2013, 8,946 in 2014, 9,081 in 2015, 9,131 in 2016, 9,275 in 2017, 9,212 in 2018 and 9,503 in 2019. Over eight years, with small fluctuations, the series points to an increase of about 900 people, roughly ten percent; that is, the neighborhood has grown at a slow, steady pace. In the 2019 ranking the neighborhood is fourth, after Şeyhcui (23,145), Hacılar Meydanı (14,837) and Bahçeleriçi (11,821), with Akbilek (9,112) immediately behind. Another compilation site presents the figure 9,275 as 2023 data; because this value is identical to the 2017 figure, its year label could not be verified and it has not been accepted as the current population.

Read together with the surface area, the picture becomes clearer. By a simple division, the number of people per square kilometer comes to about 12,000 for the 2019 population. Using the areas given in the same compilation, the corresponding value is about 15,000 for Hacılar Meydanı and about 20,000 for Bahçeleriçi; Ellibeşevler, though not the most crowded neighborhood in the city, is thus within the densely settled belt. By contrast, density is far lower in neighborhoods with large areas such as Akbilek or Yazı Bağları. These calculations are simple divisions, not an official statistic.

Ellibeşevler Today

The neighborhood has two documented recent developments. The first is green space. According to a local news report, on 3 February 2023 Amasya Municipality, under the leadership of Mayor Mehmet Sarı, began work on a "Life Park" in the neighborhood. Teams of the Directorate of Public Works are carrying out the work. According to the mayor's statement, the park will include green areas, children's play groups, walking paths, sports areas and a car park, with an amusement park planned at a later stage; security services are also part of the project. Mayor Sarı stated that work on similar parks was under way in other neighborhoods of the city as well. Because the report gives no opening date, it could not be verified whether the park has been completed. With nearly ten thousand people living in an area smaller than one square kilometer, a project that provides green space and play areas is a meaningful investment at neighborhood scale.

The second is health services. According to a news report dated 11 August 2026, the tender process for the three-physician Botanik Family Health Center to be built in the neighborhood has been completed, and the site was handed over to the contractor under Mehmet Köse, Head of Personnel and Support Services, with the participation of the technical team of the Provincial Health Directorate. With the facility, where ground is to be broken after the handover, the aim is to strengthen preventive health services, early diagnosis and screening in the area. The Provincial Health Directorate has announced that the new facility will be completed in a short time and opened for use. Bringing primary health care down to the neighborhood level in a densely populated district looks, when read alongside the population figures, like a well-placed investment.

Chronology

2012-2019: In the compilation based on TÜİK address-based population data, the neighborhood's population rose from 8,611 to 9,503.

3 February 2023: Amasya Municipality announced that work on the Life Park in the neighborhood had begun.

11 August 2026: The site for the Botanik Family Health Center was handed over to the contractor.

Sources

Other sources

Online sources