Travelling west from Amasya toward Merzifon, the road widens at one point, the mountains draw back, and a broad plain opens up, watered by the Tersakan stream on its way to the Yeşilırmak. Suluova lies in the middle of this plain. The water in its name has been both the district's greatest wealth and, for many centuries, its greatest trouble. The plain was once a marsh, and when malaria struck in summer, families took to the highland pastures of Akdağ. Today the chimneys of a sugar factory rise in its midst, and pelicans drift on the reservoir in the distance.

The history of the plain, however, goes back much further than the factory. Pottery from before the Hittites in the mounds at its edge, Roman gravestones, the boundary descriptions of a Danishmendid endowment deed, a population register of 1520 and a bloody ambush of the Ottoman Interregnum lie layered one upon another.

General Information

  • Location: 24-25 km west of the city of Amasya, in the interior of the Central Black Sea Region; it opens westward onto the Merzifon Plain. It is 18 km from Merzifon and roughly 100 km from Samsun. Low mountains enclose it on three sides.
  • Area and elevation: Official bodies give 516 km² and 510 m; some publications give 456 km² and 551 m. The reason for the difference is not explained.
  • Highest point: Akdağ, at 2,064 m or 2,044 m depending on the source.
  • Population: In the 2024 count, 47,101 in total, of whom 39,617 live in the district centre and 7,484 in the villages. The district has 40 villages.
  • Climate: A transitional climate between the continental climate of Central Anatolia and that of the Black Sea. The annual average temperature is 12 degrees, the July average 21.5 and the January average 2.2; the first frosts come in November and the last in April.

How the Plain Formed

In the Eocene (some 54 to 38 million years ago) the area around present-day Amasya was a shallow sea; the rock of Amasya Castle, Akdağ and the Lokman mountains, raised by Alpine folding, shaped the present topography when the water withdrew, and the fossil beds on Akdağ preserve traces of this past. A fossil of the embrithopod mammal Palaeoamasia kansui, found in the Eski Çeltek lignite beds and displayed in the MTA museum in Ankara, holds a special place in science because it represents one of the earliest mammals of the Cenozoic.

The present face of the plain was shaped by water. The Tersakan stream enters the district at Eski Çeltek, describes a broad arc across the plain and joins the Yeşilırmak at Amasya. Because the water table was high and drainage poor, people settled first on the dry slopes along the edges, and the marshy flat in the middle came later.

The Story of the Name: Khiliokomon, Argoma, Alevi, Suluca, Suluova

Suluova's name has changed several times through history. In antiquity Strabo calls the fertile plain that the river valley reaches as it widens north of Amaseia (Amasya) Khiliokomon, the "Plain of a Thousand Villages." Local sources identify this plain with Suluova; because Strabo does not describe the limits of the plain in detail, the identification remains an interpretation, though his geographical description fits the Suluova plain.

In Ottoman documents the region appears as Argoma or Arguma. Found from the 15th century onward, the name covered a broad geography stretching from the northern gorge of Amasya to Osmancık, and the fortress that bore it lies within the present district boundaries. In Hüsameddin Yaşar's Amasya Tarihi, Arguma Castle is described as a structure built facing itself on both sides of the northern gorge that looks toward Suluova, near its far end; the author notes that no sound remains survive, but that the castle and the plain before it are recorded under this name in old registers. Yaşar takes the name to be a shortened form of "Argun Amas" and reads the castle as the work of ancient Turks; this proposal is an etymology not grounded in documents. Other interpretations explain the name through the Turkish "sulak yurt" (watery homeland) or through the Hittite words for "border" and "settlement," and suggest that it may have designated a settlement on the frontier between the Hittite and Kaska states. No firm judgment exists.

The core of today's district centre is the village of Alevi, where the 1 Eylül Neighbourhood now stands. The 1520 survey register lists this settlement as a village of 64 households under the name "Aluyar (Alevi)." The official account of the district also states that the village took the name "Alaflı" in the late 13th century; this name needs confirmation from another document. With the 1903 amendment to the Provincial Regulation of 1871, the village of Alevi separated from the Hakala nahiye (sub-district) to which it belonged and became a nahiye itself; some sources give 1902 for this. Growing from the 1870s together with neighbouring villages such as Öyük, the settlement had become a more attractive centre than Hakala because it lay in the middle of the plain. In 1897 a primary school was built here with help from the townspeople.

The last link in the chain of name changes concerns the railway. When the Alevi halt on the Samsun-Sivas line was opened to all kinds of transactions as a station, the Ministry of the Interior proposed, to prevent confusion in postal and railway correspondence, that the village and the station be named "Suluca"; with the approval of President İsmet İnönü the proposal was enacted by decree on 19 August 1944. In 1946 the name became Suluova. When the law of 19 June 1957 creating 22 new districts took effect on 1 September 1957, Suluova, until then a bucak (sub-district), became a district. Its first mayor was Mehmet Erdal.

Mounds and Ancient Settlements

The exhibition "Suluova in Ottoman Documents," opened jointly in 2010 by the District Governorate and the General Directorate of State Archives, showed through 54 archival documents that the settlement goes back much further; the governor of the time said the district had always been thought to be only fifty years old. Of the 46 settlements identified within the district boundaries in surface surveys, 19 are prehistoric, 3 belong to the 2nd millennium BC, 10 to the Iron Age and 14 to the Hellenistic and Roman periods; to these are added 9 tumuli. According to the researchers, the figures will rise considerably once the reports of the most recent work are published.

Early settlement around Amasya is today traced back to the end of the 13th millennium BC, the Palaeolithic age. Pottery, defensive tools and weapons found in the mounds around Suluova point to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. In the Middle Bronze Age the region lay within the borders of the Hattian civilisation, and around 1650 BC the Hittites came to dominate it. In Hittite documents the earliest known name of Amasya is thought to be Hakmiş; in this geography, which extended as far as Nerik (Oymaağaç near Vezirköprü), the Suluova area is considered the fringe of Hakmiş, that is, the frontier zone between the Hittite and Kaska states.

  • Kümbettepe: Today a mound hemmed in by houses in the Hacıhayta (Doğukent) Neighbourhood, about 1 km southeast of the district centre, measuring roughly 60 x 120 m and about 8 m high. It is said to have been introduced to the archaeological world by the American archaeologist H. Frankfort; local accounts also mention an excavation by a German archaeologist, but this information has not been elaborated. On the surface, finely made pottery has been seen, mostly of the 2nd millennium BC, matching the Assyrian Trade Colony and Old Hittite periods. It is also said that brick wall remains and traces of burning have occasionally come to light around the mound; we could not find a publication documenting this.
  • Aşıtepe: It lies 1 km south of the Dereağıl Neighbourhood of Yüzbeyi Village. Identified in Mehmet Özsait's surface surveys, the settlement has been interpreted, because of the many flint tools on its slopes, as an Early Chalcolithic workshop that processed the raw material and marketed it to the surrounding area. On the hilltop there is a cone 80 x 50 m across and 5 to 7 m high, and a long wall thought to be the remains of a fortification; the pottery shows that the settlement continued intermittently from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman period.
  • Yoğurtçubaba, Gözdere and other mounds: On Yoğurtçubaba Hill near Kulu Village, a dense Early Bronze Age settlement and pottery with Chalcolithic features have been identified. Around Kolay Village there are tumuli and Gözdere Mound, inhabited from the Late Chalcolithic to the Roman period. Around the town of Eraslan two mounds and five tumuli, and around Saygılı Village the Söbedede Mound and Roman burial remains, have been found.
  • Kanatpınar Devret Mound: Excavations by the Amasya Museum have yielded many finds from the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Hittite periods.

After the collapse of the Hittites around 1190 BC, the region passed in turn under Phrygian rule, then under the Cimmerians who destroyed the Phrygian state, the Scythians, a brief Lydian period (around 650 BC), the Medes (585 BC) and the Persians (547 BC); surface surveys in Kolay Village have turned up Scythian graves and finds. Alexander the Great's campaign of 331 BC closed the Persian period; a city known in sources as "Sin," which seems to have spread over a wide area within the district boundaries, is thought to have been destroyed at this time. Amasya, capital of the Kingdom of Pontus founded around 301 BC, kept this position for about 250 years.

The Roman and Byzantine Period

When Julius Caesar defeated King Pharnaces of Pontus before Zela (Zile) in 47 BC, the Amasya and Suluova area passed into Roman hands, and after the division of AD 395 it remained under Byzantine rule. In this period the plain was both an important agricultural area and a passage linking the Black Sea coast with Central Anatolia.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Belgian archaeologist and historian Franz Cumont found inscriptions and gravestones of Roman legionaries in the Khiliokomon valley. According to Cumont, one of the temples dedicated to Zeus Stratios, the protective deity of Amaseia, lies in this valley; the others were identified in the Vezirköprü-Havza area and at Gökçebağ near Merzifon. In 1895 a Roman milestone was recorded at Suluova. Later surveys found no other milestones on this road, but they revealed two ancient routes: one from Amasya through Suluova toward the Havza area, and another from Suluova to Osmancık. At least three settlements have been recorded around the second road, among them a Roman settlement at the Kısık locality near Karaağaç. The Yavşan Dere tumulus excavations at Eraslan have shown that the region served as a necropolis for about 120 years, between AD 90 and 211, and that Eraslan was a Roman settlement over the same period.

Some events of the Byzantine period are also associated with the plain. According to local sources, the emperor Theophilos, after being defeated by the Arabs, fled to Khiliokomon near Amasya and took refuge in a fortress at Suluova, and Romanos Diogenes, returning from Seljuk captivity in 1072, faced the eastern Roman forces in this area with the army he had gathered. Because their dates and details are confused in the local text, these two accounts should not be read as certain.

The Danishmendids, the Seljuks and the Crusader Defeat of 1101

In the conquests that began on Alp Arslan's orders after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Sivas, Kayseri, Tokat, Niksar and Amasya fell to the share of Danishmend Ahmed Gazi; Danishmend Gazi took Amasya from Byzantium in 1075. After the conquest, Turkmens arriving from the direction of Khorasan and Khwarazm gave the names of their tribes and places of origin to the villages where they settled, and Greek place names became Turkish. It is said that the Kayı, Eymür, Avşar, Yıva, Salur, Çavundur and Çepni groups settled in the Amasya and Suluova area at this time; the names Eymür, Salurca, Kolay and Yivad in the 1520 register are the continuation of these traces.

In 1096, after the loss of Nicaea, the Seljuks had withdrawn to the interior, and the Danishmendids and other beyliks had taken on the defence of their own territories. After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, one of the aims of the new wave that set out at the call of Pope Paschal II was the rescue of Bohemund, Prince of Antioch, who was held prisoner by the Danishmendids at Niksar. An army of about 20,000 Lombards, French and Germans changed course and reached Merzifon in July-August 1101. According to Ahmet Kavas's article, the battle was won on 5 August 1101 by the combined forces of the Seljuk Sultan Kılıç Arslan I and the Danishmendid Gümüştekin Gazi, who governed the Amasya and Merzifon area, and four fifths of the Crusader force was put out of action. Kavas notes that the event is often left unmentioned in Europe and that its memory is not kept alive in the region either; in local accounts the battle is sometimes called a "second Manzikert."

The sources differ somewhat on where the battle took place. The district governorate's historical account places the fighting between Merzifon and Amasya, at the Suluova locality. According to the municipality's account, by contrast, the Crusaders were routed in an ambush before Merzifon, scattered and fled across the Suluova plain, and suffered heavy losses as the Seljuk and Danishmendid armies pursued them. The most reasonable reading is that the main clash took place on the Merzifon Plain, while the flight and the pursuit extended onto the Suluova plain. The governorate's account also relates that in 1109 the Crusaders entered Amasya, stayed three months, settled around the Frenk Bağları and devastated the city; we could not find this information in another source.

Danishmendid traces also appear in endowment documents. In the 1225 deed for the madrasa built in Amasya in 1209 by the Danishmendid emir Halifet Gazi, the road of the Ercük (Arucak) bridge, the Koru hamlet in Uzunoba, the now vanished village of Halifet and a water well on the road between Karaağaç and Yüzbeyi, all within the boundaries of Suluova, are listed as the borders of the endowed land. In the 16th-century land survey registers and the Evkaf-ı Rum records, Harmanağılı, Uzunoba, Yüzbeyi, Hakala, Karaağaç and Üyük appear as endowments of this madrasa. A tomb in Kolay Village in the name of Melik İsmail may, judging from its old images, belong to the Danishmendid, Seljuk or early Islamic period; because the tomb has been renovated, the old remains lie under the new structure.

For the entry of Amasya under Anatolian Seljuk rule, the sources give different dates between 1143 (Mesud I) and 1155-1164 (Kılıçarslan II). After the death of the Danishmendid Bey Yağıbasan, Kılıçarslan II took these lands under his own administration and gave Amasya to his son Nizameddin Argunşah; under Mesud II the emirate of the Arguma nahiye was held by Âbâd Bey of Hakala. After the Battle of Kösedağ in 1243 and the Babai revolt came Ilkhanid rule, then the Eretna state and the era of Kadı Burhaneddin. According to a local account based on Yaşar's Amasya Tarihi, Hüsameddin Laçin, from the hamlet of Laçin next to Hacı Bayram village in the Hakala nahiye, was Mamluk sultan of Egypt between 1296 and 1299; the origin of the Sultan Lajin of the Mamluk sources is a matter for separate research, and we could not confirm the link with Suluova.

Yolpınar (Hakala): The Village of the Madrasa and the Lodge

Chief among the hillside villages at the edge of the plain is Hakala, today called Yolpınar. In the Ottoman period one of the four nahiyes of Amasya was located here. In the 1520 survey register Hakala (Kağala) is recorded as the centre of the Akdağ nahiye and a town of 119 households; in the same register, the villages of the Argoma nahiye are Salurca with 93 households, Kolay 60, Kavlak 59, Kayacık 56, Firuz (Ortayazı) 47, İlarslan (today's Eraslan) 46 and Eymür 45. Most of the nahiye's revenues went to endowments: the Hakala Madrasa, the Halifet Gazi Madrasa, the Yörgüç Pasha Madrasa, the Şehzadeler Endowment and the Imaret of Sultan Mehmed Khan are listed among the endowments attached to the Argoma nahiye.

The best-known building in the village is the Kasım Bey Madrasa. In the cultural inventory it is recorded as an Ottoman work built in the 15th century by Kasım Bey; it has no inscription and no endowment deed, and the municipality gives 1464 as the year of construction. Built of masonry on a rise beside the stream, east of the village, the madrasa with its large lecture hall and wide cells was counted among the first forty madrasas of the "kırklar" rank. Its plan is a rectangle extending north to south (7.80 x 10.70 m); there are three rooms on each side of the stream, and south of the stream a square space covered by a dome carried on Turkish triangles. The building is under first-degree monument protection. In the madrasa network of Amasya, which the French traveller and archaeologist Georges Perrot called "the Oxford of Anatolia" in 1861, writing that nearly two thousand students studied there, the Kasım Bey Madrasa was one of the most important links in the countryside. In the same village is said to have stood the Hacı Bey Zade Muhyiddin Efendi Madrasa, of which no trace is found today, where great scholars were trained.

The lodge southwest of the village was built in 1348 by Seyyid Necmeddin Yahya er-Rufai, and its endowments were arranged in 1355. Local accounts present him as the son of Seyyid Ahmed Kuçek er-Rufai, count him as the 19th-generation descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, and say that his actual trade was locksmithing and that in a drought he brought water to the village. His tomb is west of Yolpınar and is still visited today.

The event that ties Hakala to Ottoman history goes back to the Interregnum. According to local tradition, after the Battle of Ankara Timur appointed Tacettin Kara Devlet Şah as governor of Amasya, but Kara Devlet Şah, kept out of the city, camped before Hakala. When the notables of Amasya, together with the administrators of the surrounding districts, refused to recognise Timur's decree, Timur sent his son Kara Mehmed Sultan and his teacher Numeddin Abdülcebbar el-Mutezilî; in the examination held, Gümüşlüzade Pir Seccadin İlyas Çelebi answered ten questions in full and saved the city from plunder, and in 1402 Kara Mehmed Sultan appointed Şemseddin Şadgedi Bey as governor. When Kara Devlet Şah still did not leave Hakala, the people of Amasya asked Çelebi Mehmed in Bolu for help; Çelebi Mehmed removed Kara Devlet Şah in a sudden raid with his horsemen on Hakala and in 1402 became master of Amasya. Çelebi Mehmed's taking control of Amasya is also known from Ottoman sources; Timur's delegation and the examination, however, are a tradition we could not confirm with other documents.

The Plain in the Ottoman Period

According to local tradition, Amasya, after Kadı Burhaneddin, joined the Ottomans in 1386 by decision of the city's notables, and Murad I sent Prince Yıldırım Bayezid here as sanjak governor. The lands of Suluova became one of Prince Bayezid's hunting grounds; he is said to have prepared for the conquests in Rumelia by hunting here with his beys. When the Timur threat drew near, Çelebi Mehmed was sent to Amasya as the second sanjak governor.

During the Interregnum (1402-1413), Çelebi Mehmed set up a cavalry training ground on the Yedikır meadow to raise troops for the struggle with his brothers and against other threats; archery and javelin contests were held there continually. In the municipality's account, the contests between the "Lahanacı" (cabbage) and "Bamyacı" (okra) teams are counted as Turkey's first "derby," but no document supporting this is cited. Until the end of the 19th century the settlement in the middle of the plain remained a small village.

The Hacı Bektaş Tradition: Document or Local Account

The tradition most often mentioned in Suluova is that the Janissary Corps received its name here. As relayed by the district governorate, in Necip Fazıl Kısakürek's Yeniçeri Orhan Gazi comes in 1326 with his newly formed soldiers to Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli at "Saluca Karahöyük," that is, at Kümbettepe, kisses his hand and asks that a name be given to the new troops; Hacı Bektaş gives them the name "Yeniçeri" and prays for them. The municipality bases the same event on Hammer, Lamartine, Kienitz, Neşri and Oruç Bey; according to Hammer, Orhan went to Hacı Bektaş, who lived in the village of Suluca Kenaryun (Karahöyük) near Amasya, to ask for a prayer, a banner and a name for the new troops. The municipality's account also asserts that after Antep, Antakya, Maraş, Sivas, Tokat, Amasya, Çorum, Yozgat and Kırşehir, Hacı Bektaş settled in Sulucakarahöyük and founded his last lodge there; according to Kısakürek, he stayed in this region for seven years.

Caution is needed here. The old name of the district of Hacıbektaş (Nevşehir) is also Suluca Karahöyük, and the Velayetname and the guide texts around Hacıbektaş use this name for the settlement in Nevşehir. The Velayetname also records that Hacı Bektaş girded Osman Gazi with a sword and had him wear the Elif Crown; this text diverges from the accounts that attach the event to Orhan Gazi. The municipality, too, admits that there are differing views on Hacı Bektaş's birth and death dates and on the period in which he lived, and that the scarcity of sources for the period leaves the matter open to different interpretations. The account should therefore be read as a local claim of ownership rather than as an event proven by documents.

From Marsh to Fertile Plain

Before 1950 a large part of the plain was covered by reed beds where the water stood still, by marshes or by standing water. Drainage was poor, so the water table and salinity damaged farmland, and malaria made the plain uninhabitable in the summer months. Because of the scarcity of fertile soil and low yields, famine occurred in dry years. According to the Chamber of Commerce, a community of no more than 6 or 7 families once lived in this area.

The transformation took place in two stages. The first began in 1950, when tractors and machinery were distributed to farmers with Marshall aid. Marshes were drained, poorly drained areas were reclaimed, and unproductive meadows and pastures that took up much of the plain were ploughed up and opened to farming. The real leap came with the sugar factory, with which conscious farming began.

The Amasya Sugar Factory

The foundation of the Amasya Sugar Factory was laid on 13 September 1953 in a ceremony attended by President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Minister of State Enterprises Sıtkı Yırcalı, Baha Tekand, the General Manager of the Turkish Sugar Factories, and thousands of people; Bayar laid the first mortar on the foundation with the wish that it be "auspicious." The factory went into operation on 11 September 1954 and became Turkey's eighth sugar factory.

The plant, which at its founding processed 1,890 tons of beets a day, had its capacity raised to 2,400 tons in 1965, to 4,800 tons in 1968 and later to 5,500 tons; about 550,000 tons of beets a year were processed into 65,000 tons of crystal sugar. The factory was run by the Turkish Sugar Factories until 1991 and became the first sugar factory to be fully privatised. The share of the farmer partner, the Beet Growers' Cooperative, was 23 percent at the founding and is 71.5 percent today. An ethyl alcohol plant came on stream in 1996 to make use of molasses. The 2006-2007 campaign lasted 71 days, 338,000 tons of beets were processed and 37,450 tons of crystal sugar were obtained. Older accounts also circulate figures for the first campaign, such as more than nine thousand farmers, a 73-day season, over 110,000 tons of beets and more than 17,000 tons of sugar; we could not confirm these with an official document.

The factory's most lasting effect was seen in agriculture. The company's agricultural engineers taught farmers modern techniques, loans in kind were granted, and after beets wheat yields rose and the orchards and poplar growing, which had barely existed before, developed. By-products such as pulp, molasses, beet tails and leaves quickly expanded cattle fattening. This growth revived industry, raised school enrolment and brought heavy migration; the town centre shifted toward the factory, and the municipality was founded in 1957. This is why Suluova is called "the district born around the factory."

The newcomers came from neighbouring districts such as Taşova, Ladik, Gümüşhacıköy, Kavak, Zile and Vezirköprü, and from Kars, Erzurum, Gümüşhane, Sivas and the Black Sea Region. According to TÜİK counts, the district's population was 19,538 in 1960 (centre 6,199), 46,426 in 1985 and 54,123 in 2000; it fell to 47,428 in 2007 and has stayed in the band of 46 to 47 thousand. Along with the Sugar Factory, the Meat and Fish Authority and the coal mines had brought rapid growth in the centre in the 1960, 1970 and 1975 counts. The economic crisis after 1975, the privatisation of the Sugar Factory and the Meat and Fish Authority after 1980, the failure of the coal enterprises in the face of foreign competition and the crisis in livestock raising reduced employment, and population growth slowed. Today, thanks to the Organised Industrial Zone and the Agriculture-Based Specialised Organised Fattening Zone, the district aims to become once again a place that receives migrants.

Coal, Onions and the Fattening Plain

Lignite. Lignite discovered around 1911 at Eski Çeltek first met the army's heating needs and gained importance as railways and locomotives spread. In 1927 the Directorate of State Railways and Ports began to operate it. Today the annual capacity of the pit, run as both open-cast and underground by the Special Provincial Administration, is about 250,000 tons.

Farming. Wheat, onions, barley, sugar beet, beet seed, maize, sunflower, poppy and chickpea are grown. In villages such as Harmanağılı, Yolpınar, Uzunoba, Saluca, Kurnaz and Boyalı, apples, peaches and cherries are an important livelihood, and walnuts have also become widespread in the mountain villages. Of the forests that begin on the slopes of Akdağ, about 50 percent is black pine, 40 percent Scots pine, 5 percent beech and 5 percent oak. In the local press Suluova onions are mentioned as having a geographical indication, but we could not confirm the registration; onion contests are held as part of the district's festivals.

Cattle fattening. According to the figures given by the district governorate, the district has about 51,000 head of cattle, 9,500 small livestock and 924,000 poultry. In the Agriculture-Based Specialised Fattening OIZ, 32 fattening facilities and three industrial plants were operating at the start of 2023; the Ekur Integrated Meat Facility had a capacity of slaughtering and processing 400 head of cattle a day, and the biogas plants produced 7.6 megawatts of electricity. With the expansion area it is intended to reach 152.5 hectares and a capacity of about 20,000 head, becoming Turkey's largest fattening OIZ. The district also has facilities producing feed, food, textiles, eggs and integrated meat, marble, paving stone and plastic goods.

Yedikır Dam and the Yedikuğular Bird Paradise

Yedikır, 4 to 10 km from the district centre (sources give different distances), is an earth-fill irrigation dam at a locality formerly called Acıkır, fed by canals from the Tersakan stream. Construction is said to have begun in 1979 and been completed in 1985 or 1986. The lake is used to irrigate about 70,000 decares of land. For its volume, the governorate's text gives 60 million m³ in one place and 300 million m³ in another; 60 million m³ is repeated more often, and the dam is described as the largest irrigation dam in the area.

The lake lies on a bird migration route. By decision of the Conservation Board for Cultural and Natural Assets on 17 August 1989 it was declared a first-degree natural protected area, became a wildlife protection area and took the name "Yedikuğular Bird Paradise." The area ranks 57th in the "Important Bird Areas of Turkey" book of the Nature Conservation Society; the governorate gives its size as 817 hectares, while the figure varies in other sources. The surroundings have been laid out as a recreation area, and the dam area has been opened to amateur fishing.

For the number of bird species, figures of 34, over 100, 170, over 200 and 230 have been given in different years and by different criteria. Murad Karavin, a zoologist at Amasya University, notes that most of the roughly 250 species observed in Amasya have been recorded at Yedikır, and that about 170 of them have been seen here. The white pelican finds one of Turkey's two breeding grounds here, and the island in the middle is called "pelican island." The ruddy shelduck (angıt) and the cormorant are also important species; many species are said to breed in the area. In 2021 a pair of demoiselle cranes was identified by teams of the Nature Conservation and National Parks directorate and placed under protection, and the pair was seen again the following year. The greater white-fronted goose, observed only 2 or 3 times in Turkey, is also reported to have been seen here. The lake's name comes, according to local tradition, from a flock of whooper swans wintering here; a local newspaper wrote in January 2025 that 12 whooper swans were wintering. We could not find a text showing that the "seven swans" rest on a legend.

The area has today been laid out by the Suluova Municipality as the "Yedi Kuğular National Garden." The mayor announced in 2019 that entrance fees had been abolished and that visitors could use their own barbecues and samovars around the pond, and an Olympic swimming pool was among the plans mentioned. The Yedikır Social Facilities have a small guesthouse and a mini zoo for families with children.

Natural Beauty and Tombs

  • Kapaklı Forest Nursery: A 42-hectare oak and black pine forest on the slopes of Akdağ at 1,000 m, with a picnic area and a sapling production facility.
  • Derinöz Dam: An irrigation reservoir of 3.5 million m³ on the Derinöz stream in the east of the district; it waters part of the Ladik Plain and the Suluova Plain, and its surroundings serve as a recreation area.
  • Gani Baba Tomb and picnic area: Below Saygılı Village, on the bank of the Tersakan; the site of Gazi Dervish Sheikh Abdülgani el-Halvetî, who came from Khorasan to Anatolia.
  • Akdağ highlands: In the last week of June the Association of Akdağ Villages and Villagers holds a highland festival.
  • Shrines: Alaflı Dede (the cemetery above the station garden in the 1 Eylül Neighbourhood), Gökçe (Delil) Baba, the Erenler Tomb (in the Hacı Hayta Neighbourhood; the Alevi water channel from which, by his will, water is still run), Avdan Dede (Akören grove) and Seyyid Yahya (Yolpınar). Local sources write that these people were the ones who brought about settlement in Suluova and that they are visited today to make wishes.

When Atatürk Passed Through Suluova

Mustafa Kemal set out from Havza for Amasya at about 10.00 on Thursday, 12 June 1919. According to local tradition, on the neglected road the Benz car boiled over near the inns in today's 1 Eylül (Hacı Hayta) Neighbourhood; Mustafa Kemal got out and began walking with his companions, and they sang Ali Ulvi Elöve's march "Dağ Başını Duman Almış" here for the first time. This is an oral account, not supported by documents. On his 1928 tour to introduce the Alphabet and Language Reform, too, he is said to have got off the train at Hacıbayram station, greeted the people and been received by Faik Bey, the Amasya governor of the time, and a delegation representing the nahiye. On his 1930 tours, local accounts recall that Caba Dayı, a carter and wagon driver in Mirdehor (Oğulbağı), took him to Amasya by way of the Kurtuluş bridge and the Eymir route.

Culture, Cuisine and Wrestling

Suluova's culture has taken shape through the mixing, over the last thirty or forty years, of people who came from different regions. In the centre weddings are held in halls, while in the villages the traditional wedding, beginning on Friday and lasting three days, lives on. On the first day the kızbaşı and yiğitbaşı (leaders of the bride's and groom's sides) are chosen, and if the bride is to go far away the trousseau is displayed; on the second day the bride and groom go to the bathhouse, the groom is shaved, and after the night prayer the henna is applied with hymns and prayers; on the third day, as the bride is taken, the door is locked, a door fee and a brother's allowance are collected, the pillow is sold, and at the groom's house chickpeas and coins are scattered over the bride's head. At the "duvak" ceremony the next day the bride meets the groom's relatives. The "ebede" custom at the engagement (passing the gifts over the bride's head), bringing the bohça and "eksik görme" (a shopping outing before the engagement) are also established customs.

Young men who are to go to military service are fixed a month beforehand, and those who go in the same period call each other "tertip." When a child begins teething, wheat is boiled, mixed with sugar and distributed to neighbours as "diş hediği." In spring, children gather crocuses and go from house to house, and the helva made from the flour, sugar and butter they collect is shared out among all the children of the village. At Hıdırellez no one goes to the field, vineyard or garden, and wishes are written on paper and hung on a rose branch. When a new house is built, lengths of dress fabric hung on the roof around the helva pole are given to the master who builds the house.

The cuisine is heavy on meat and vegetables; grain, sunflower and poppy are the main crops of the area. Tarhana and yarma soups, bulgur pilaf, stuffed leaves with broad beans, cızlak (a fried batter) and poppy-seed pastry are commonly made. Keşkek comes first among them: dried meat seasoned with çemen, beef bone, hulled wheat and soaked chickpeas are cooked with a little tomato paste in a special clay pot in a hot oven for a whole night, and served with a sauce of butter and tomato paste. Stuffed leaves with broad beans are the kind of dolma rolled in the shape of an amulet with peeled broad beans in place of meat. For the poppy-seed pastry, dough coated with sunflower oil and crushed poppy seeds is rolled, sliced, brushed with yogurt and egg, and baked.

At weddings, games brought from different regions, such as Sinsin, Fanzara, Hoşbilezik, Yelleme, Topalkız, Mektepli, Noktalı, Mahirçavuş, Temirağa and Semah, are danced. Wrestling holds a privileged place in the district; wrestlers who have won success at home and abroad have come from here. At the festivities on 1 September, when the founding anniversary is celebrated, karakucak wrestling matches, a circumcision feast and local contests are held.

Education and Notable Figures

The literacy rate in the district is high. In secondary education there are a Science High School, Anatolian high schools, Health, Commerce, Technical and Girls' Vocational high schools and an Imam Hatip High School; the Amasya University Suluova Vocational School, opened in the 2011-2012 school year, offers education in the departments of Food Processing, Veterinary Science, Environmental Protection Technologies, Property Protection and Security, and Plant and Animal Production. The Public Education Centre opens courses in the villages in clothing, embroidery, needle lace and carpet weaving.

Among the figures that local sources say the district produced are Süleyman Pasha, known as Hacı İvad Pasha, from Feriz village, Es-Seyyid Muhyiddin Efendi from Gala village, and Abdülgani Hazretleri, known as Gani Baba. We could not find detailed documents about these figures.

Visiting Notes

  • Transport: For Ankara the governorate's text gives 248 km in one place and 335 km in another; 335 is more plausible for the road distance. On the Samsun-Sivas railway there are the Suluca and Hacıbayram stations. Göynücek is 60 km, Gümüşhacıköy 47 km and Hamamözü 65 km away.
  • Season: Spring and autumn migration periods are best for birdwatching, winter for the swans, and summer for the highlands.
  • Lodging: There are guesthouses belonging to the Sugar Factory, the Teachers' House and the Yedikır Social Facilities; in busy periods the centre of Amasya offers more choice.

Chronology

2nd millennium BC: Pottery of the Assyrian Trade Colony and Old Hittite periods at Kümbettepe.

1101 (5 August): The Crusader army is defeated on the Merzifon Plain, and the fugitives scatter across the Suluova plain.

1209 and 1225: Construction and endowment deed of the Halifet Gazi Madrasa; Suluova lands are named in the endowment boundary.

1348: Seyyid Necmeddin Yahya has a lodge built at Hakala; its endowments are arranged in 1355.

1386: Amasya joins the Ottomans.

1402: Çelebi Mehmed removes Kara Devlet Şah at Hakala.

1464: Kasım Bey Madrasa (the construction date given by the municipality).

1520: The Argoma and Akdağ nahiyes in the survey register; Hakala 119 households, Alevi 64 households.

1903: The village of Alevi becomes a nahiye.

1927: Eski Çeltek lignite is put into operation by the State Railways.

1944 (19 August): The village of Alevi is given the name Suluca; in 1946 the name becomes Suluova.

1953 (13 September): The foundation of the sugar factory is laid; the factory opens on 11 September 1954.

1957 (1 September): Suluova becomes a district.

1989 (17 August): Yedikır is declared a first-degree natural protected area.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yaşar, Amasya Tarihi (sections quoted in the municipality and governorate texts).
  • Strabo, Geographika, Book XII (Amaseia section).

Academic studies

  • Ahmet Kavas, "Haçlılara Vurulan İlk Darbe: Merzifon Muharebesi (5 Ağustos 1101) ve Türk Tarihindeki Yeri", Journal of Medeniyet Politics, 2019 (DergiPark).

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Suluova District Governorate, "İlçemiz ve Tarihi" and "Yedikır Kuş Cenneti" (suluova.gov.tr). suluova.gov.tr
  • Republic of Türkiye Suluova Municipality, "Tarihçe" (suluova.bel.tr). suluova.bel.tr
  • Türkiye Culture Portal, "Yolpınar Köyü Kasım Bey Medresesi" and "Yedikuğular Kuş Cenneti" (kulturportali.gov.tr). kulturportali.gov.tr

Other sources

  • Suluova Chamber of Commerce, "Suluova'nın Tarihçesi" and "Sanayi: Şeker Fabrikası" (suluovatso.org.tr). suluovatso.org.tr
  • Anadolu Agency, "Yedikır Barajı 230 kuş türüne ev sahipliği yapıyor" (2022), "Yedikır Baraj Gölü 170 kuş türüne ev sahipliği yapıyor" (2024) and "Amasya'da Türkiye'nin en büyük besi OSB'si oluşturuluyor" (2023).
  • Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Yeniçeri; Hammer, Büyük Osmanlı Tarihi (sections quoted in the same texts).
  • Wikipedia, "Suluova" (Turkish and English) and "Merzifon Muharebesi".
  • Hacıbektaş travel guide (hacibektasmobil.com), "Suluca Karahöyük".

Online sources