Population of India: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition

1. India's population and its data sources

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• Size (Census 2011): 1,210 million people. Class 12, Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition calls India second after China. India had more people than North America, South America and Australia put together. The chapter opens by asking whether India is a territory, a mix of peoples, or people living under shared institutions.
• India as the most populous country: UN estimates show India passed China around April 2023, with over 1.42 billion people. China's population began to shrink in 2022. UN WPP 2024 expects India to peak at about 1.7 billion in the early 2060s (verify current). NCERT's projection of "1,350 million by 2025" has already been passed.
• Census of India: a count of all people held every 10 years. The first census was in 1872, but it was not held everywhere at the same time (non-synchronous). The first complete census came in 1881. It records numbers, density, literacy, workers, language, religion, SCs and STs, and migration. The Registrar General and Census Commissioner (Ministry of Home Affairs) runs it under the Census Act 1948. Census 2011 was the 15th.
• Census 2027: the 16th census, delayed from 2021 by COVID-19. Its reference date is 1 March 2027 (1 October 2026 for snow-bound parts of Ladakh, J&K, Himachal and Uttarakhand), and house-listing comes first. It is the first digital census, with a mobile app and an option for people to fill in their own details. It will count caste for the first time since 1931 (verify current).
• Between censuses:
• Sample Registration System (Registrar General, full scale since about 1969-70) gives yearly state figures for birth rate, death rate, IMR, fertility and MMR.
• National Family Health Survey (Health Ministry, with IIPS Mumbai as nodal agency) covers population, health and nutrition. NFHS-5 (2019-21) found a TFR of 2.0 and 1,020 women per 1,000 men. NFHS-6 results are awaited (verify current).
• PLFS (yearly since 2017-18) covers jobs.

2. Distribution of population and its factors

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• Distribution of population in India is very uneven (Fig. 1.1, Census 2011). Uttar Pradesh has the most people, followed by Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal.
• These four, plus Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat, hold about 76% of Indians.
• Some large states hold tiny shares: J&K (1.04%), Uttarakhand (0.84%) and Arunachal Pradesh (0.11%).
• NCERT activity (Appendix i): sort states into large size and large population (UP, Maharashtra), large size but small population (Arunachal; Rajasthan for its area) and small size but large population (Kerala, Bihar, West Bengal).
• Factors of population distribution:
• Physical: climate, terrain and water. The North Indian Plains, deltas and coastal plains are crowded. The interior south and central uplands, the Himalayas, parts of the North-East and the west are thinly peopled.
• Human changes to the pattern: irrigation (Indira Gandhi Canal, Rajasthan), minerals and energy (Jharkhand) and transport (Peninsular states) raised densities in areas that once had few people.

• Socio-economic and historical: early settled farming, the history of settlement, transport, industry and cities. River plains and coasts stay crowded even where land and water are degraded, because people settled there early and transport networks grew there.

• Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Jaipur keep growing through industry and rural-urban migrants. Very hot-dry and very cold-wet regions stay sparse (exercise 2(i)). Factors at world scale are in world-population.

3. Density of population: arithmetic, physiological and agricultural

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• Population density is the number of persons per sq km. It is a rough (crude) measure of how people relate to land.
• India's density: 117 in 1951 and 382 in 2011, a rise of more than 200 in 50 years.
• Range (Census 2011): from 17 in Arunachal Pradesh to 11,297 in the NCT of Delhi.

Level	States/UTs (Census 2011)
High, north	Bihar 1,102 (highest state; final figure 1,106), West Bengal 1,029, UP 828
High, Peninsula	Kerala 859, Tamil Nadu 555
Moderate	Assam, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Odisha
Low	Himalayan states and north-eastern hill states (not Assam)
Very high	Union Territories (except Andaman and Nicobar)

• Physiological density = total population ÷ net cultivated area. It shows how many people press on the land that is actually under crops.
• Agricultural density = agricultural population (cultivators, agricultural labourers and their families) ÷ net cultivable area. It shows how many farm-dependent people each unit of farmland must feed. It is high where farms are small (Bihar, Kerala) and lower in Punjab, where holdings are larger.
• Use these two ratios to explain disguised unemployment and land fragmentation (land-use-farming-systems; worked sums in geographical-data-processing).

4. Growth of population: the four phases since 1901

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• Population growth is the change in the number of people in an area between two dates, given as a percentage.
• The natural part is the crude birth rate minus the crude death rate.
• The induced part is migration in and out.

• The NCERT chapter covers only natural growth.

• Decadal growth rate: g = (P2 − P1) ÷ P1 × 100. Doubling time is the time a population takes to double at its current yearly rate (about 70 ÷ the growth rate in %).

• India's annual growth rate was 1.64% in 2011. NCERT says growth is "steadily increasing". This is FALSE: its own Table 1.1 shows growth falling since 1971-81. Growth is now about 0.9% a year by UN estimates (verify current).

Phase	Years	Key data (Table 1.1)	Cause
Stagnant phase of population growth	1901-21	238.4 m in 1901; −0.31% in 1911-21 (only fall)	High birth and death rates; poor health care, illiteracy, weak food supply; famines, plague, 1918 influenza
Steady growth phase	1921-51	13.31% in 1941-51	Better health, sanitation and transport cut deaths while births stayed high; despite the Great Depression and World War II (1921 = "Great Divide")
Population explosion phase	1951-81	Peak 24.80% (1961-71); 24.66% (1971-81); about 2.2% a year	Deaths fell fast while fertility stayed high; planned development; migrants from Tibet, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan
Phase of declining growth	after 1981	21.54% (1991-2001); 17.64% (2001-11, 1,210 m)	Falling birth rate; later marriage, better living standards, female education

• India is now in the late stage of the demographic transition model (world-population).

5. Regional variation in growth and the fertility transition

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• Regional variation in population growth (NCERT):
• In 1991-2001, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Puducherry and Goa grew by no more than 20%. Kerala had the lowest growth in India (9.4%).
• A belt from Gujarat and Rajasthan through Punjab, Haryana, UP, MP and Bihar to West Bengal and Assam grew 20-25%.

• In 2001-11 almost every state slowed. Andhra Pradesh fell least (3.5 points) and Maharashtra most (6.7 points). Tamil Nadu (3.9 points) and Puducherry (7.1 points) rose.

• North-south fertility divide: the southern states, West Bengal, Punjab, Himachal and Maharashtra fell below replacement level (TFR under 2.1) long ago. Bihar (3.0), Meghalaya, UP and Jharkhand were still above 2.1 in NFHS-5 (verify current).

• Causes: female literacy, age at marriage, health systems, women's freedom to decide, and urbanisation.

• Effects: workers move from north to south, and the south ages faster. There is political debate over the Lok Sabha seat freeze (until the first census after 2026) and over how much population counts in Finance Commission transfers (polity and economy subjects).

• National Population Policy 2000 aimed for replacement-level TFR by 2010 and a stable population by 2045. Its tools were free contraception, care for mothers and children, and community action. India reached replacement level only around 2019-21.

• Infant mortality rate is deaths of babies under one year per 1,000 live births. It fell from 129 (1971) to 25 (SRS 2023). It is lowest in Kerala (5) and highest in Chhattisgarh, MP and UP (verify current).
• Maternal mortality ratio is mothers' deaths per 1,00,000 live births. It was 93 in 2019-21 (SRS). It is lowest in Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana and high in MP and Assam (verify current). The SDG target is below 70 by 2030.

6. Age structure: adolescents, the demographic dividend and ageing

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• Adolescent population means people aged 10-19. They were 20.9% of Indians in 2011 (52.7% male, 47.3% female). This group has great potential but is also at risk. Their problems include:
• early marriage, illiteracy (especially among girls) and dropping out of school;
• poor nutrition and high maternal deaths among teenage mothers;

• HIV/AIDS, physical and mental disability, drugs and alcohol, delinquency and crime.

• National Youth Policy 2014 (launched February 2014) has the vision "to empower the youth of the country to achieve their full potential, and through them enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations". It defines youth as people aged 15-29. The National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 brings all skilling under one framework and links it to places where jobs exist.

• Census 2011 age structure: about 31% of Indians were under 15 and 8.6% were 60 or older.
• Dependency ratio is the number of dependants (under 15 and 65+) per 100 people aged 15-64. Child dependency is falling and old-age dependency is rising, fastest in the south.
• Demographic dividend is the extra growth possible when the working-age share is large and the dependent share is small. India's window opened around 2005 and may last until about 2055. It pays off only if people have jobs, skills and good health and more women work. Otherwise it becomes a "demographic burden" (employment-informal-sector).
• India Ageing Report 2023 (UNFPA–IIPS) expects the share aged 60+ to rise from about 10% (2021) to over 20% by 2050. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other southern states are ageing fastest, and most of the elderly will be women, many of them widows (verify current). Policy responses include pensions, the Senior Citizens Act 2007 and Ayushman Bharat for everyone aged 70+ (2024).

7. Sex ratio, gender and literacy

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• NCERT box: society divides people into male, female and transgender. Social roles then turn these biological differences into discrimination and exclusion. UNDP's HDR 1995 warned: "If development is not engendered it is endangered."
• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao was launched on 22 January 2015 at Panipat (Haryana). It aims to stop the falling child sex ratio and to help girls survive, stay safe and go to school. It began in 100 gender-critical districts and now covers the whole country. The WCD, Health and Education ministries run it together.
• Sex ratio in India means females per 1,000 males. Census 2011 figures:
• overall 943; highest Kerala (1,084) and lowest Haryana (879) among states;
• child sex ratio (ages 0-6) 918, the lowest ever.

• NFHS-5 found 1,020 women per 1,000 men in households.

• Sex ratio at birth is girls born per 1,000 boys. The natural level is about 950. India's is lower because of sex-selective abortion, and it is worst in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi (verify current). The PC-PNDT Act 1994 bans finding out the sex of a foetus.

• Missing women is Amartya Sen's term (1990) for women who should be alive but are not, because of neglect in food and health care and because of sex-selective abortion. India's count runs into tens of millions.
• Literacy (Census 2011): 74.04% overall (males 82.14%, females 65.46%). Kerala is highest (about 94%) and Bihar lowest (about 62%). The gender gap is large in the Hindi belt and among STs.
• Low female literacy, high fertility and a poor sex ratio tend to occur in the same areas.

8. Rural-urban composition

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• Rural-urban composition means dividing people by where they live. It is a key sign of a region's social and economic character.
• Census 2011:
• 68.8% of Indians were rural and 31.16% urban;

• 640,867 villages, of which 597,608 (93.2%) had people living in them.

• State shares:

• Himachal Pradesh and Bihar are the most rural states.
• NCERT says Goa and Mizoram have "a little over half" of their people in villages. Census 2011 actually gives about 38% (Goa) and 48% (Mizoram), so they are the least rural. Goa has the highest urban share (exercise 1(iii)).

• Union Territories are mostly urban, except Dadra and Nagar Haveli (53.38% rural).

• Village size:

• under 200 people in the north-eastern hill states, western Rajasthan and the Rann of Kachchh;

• about 17,000 in Kerala and parts of Maharashtra.

• The level of urbanisation and rural-urban migration decide how many people stay in villages (exercise 2(ii)).

• Urban population is a small share but grows faster, because of economic growth and better health and hygiene.
• Migration to towns is strong along roads and railways in the North Indian Plains, and around Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru-Mysuru, Madurai-Coimbatore, Ahmedabad-Surat, Delhi-Kanpur and Ludhiana-Jalandhar.

• Urbanisation stays low in the stagnant middle and lower Ganga plains, Telangana, dry western Rajasthan, the remote tribal North-East, flood-prone Peninsular areas and eastern MP.

• Today's urban share is about 36% (verify current). City classes are in human-settlements.

9. Linguistic composition: language families and scheduled languages

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• Linguistic Survey of India: George Grierson's survey (1903-1928) recorded 179 languages and 544 dialects.
• Scheduled languages: the 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule. Hindi has the most speakers; Sanskrit, Bodo and Manipuri had the fewest in 2011.
• The schedule began with 14 languages.
• Additions: Sindhi (1967); Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali (1992); Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali (2003).

• Language regions do not have sharp borders; they blend into each other at the edges.

• Census 2011 language data: 19,569 raw mother tongues were grouped into 121 languages (22 scheduled, 99 non-scheduled). Hindi was the mother tongue of 43.6%, Bengali 8.0% and Marathi 6.9%. Scheduled languages cover about 97% of people.

• Language families of India (Table 1.2; exercise 1(iv): Indo-Aryan is the largest group):

Family	Share	Branches and speech areas
Indo-European language family (Aryan)	73%	Indo-Aryan: J&K, Punjab, Himachal, UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, MP, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa; Dardic (Kashmiri): J&K; Iranian: outside India
Dravidian language family (Dravida)	20%	South (Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam): Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala; Central (Telugu, Gondi): Andhra Pradesh, MP, Odisha, Maharashtra; North (Kurukh, Malto): Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, MP
Austric language family (Nishada)	1.38%	Austro-Asiatic: Mon-Khmer (Khasi in Meghalaya, Nicobarese); Munda (Santhali, Mundari, Ho) in West Bengal, Bihar/Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, MP, Maharashtra; Austro-Nesian: outside India
Sino-Tibetan language family (Kirata)	0.85%	Tibeto-Himalayan: Ladakh/J&K, Himachal, Sikkim; North Assam: Arunachal; Assam-Myanmari: Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya

• Classical language: a status the Union government gives to languages with ancient, original literature.
• Earlier list: Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Telugu and Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013), Odia (2014).
• Added in October 2024: Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali, making 11 (verify current).

10. Religious composition and Scheduled Tribes

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• Religious composition of India (Table 1.3, Census 2011):

Group	Share	Main areas
Hindus	79.8% (966.3 m)	70-90%+ in most states; lower along the Bangladesh and Pakistan borders, in J&K, the north-eastern hill states and parts of the Deccan and Ganga plain
Muslims	14.2% (172.2 m)	J&K, parts of West Bengal and Kerala, many UP districts, in and around Delhi; majority in Kashmir valley and Lakshadweep
Christians	2.3%	Mostly rural; Goa, Kerala, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Chota Nagpur, Manipur hills
Sikhs	1.7%	Punjab, Haryana, Delhi
Buddhists	0.7%	Mostly Maharashtra; majority in Sikkim, Arunachal, Ladakh, Tripura, Lahul-Spiti
Jains	0.4%	Urban Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra

• Other religions and persuasions make up 0.7%, and 0.2% did not state a religion. Zoroastrians and tribal faiths live in small pockets.
• "Religion and Landscape" box: shrines, temples, masjids, gurudwaras, monasteries, churches, cemeteries and sacred groves leave a religious mark on the landscape.
• Distribution of Scheduled Tribes:
• STs were 8.6% of Indians in 2011 (about 10.4 crore).
• They live mainly in the central tribal belt (MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, plus Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra) and the North-East. Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya are over 85% tribal.

• Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Puducherry have no notified STs.

• Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are the most isolated tribes. They use very simple, pre-farming tools, have low literacy and a stagnant or falling population, and grow or gather only enough to live on.

• There are 75 PVTGs in 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Odisha has the most (13).
• Examples: Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Shompen (A&N); Bondo, Dongria Kondh (Odisha); Baiga (MP); Toda (Nilgiris).
• PM-JANMAN (2023) brings them basic services (verify current).

11. Working population and occupational structure

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• Main worker: worked at least 183 days (six months) in the reference year. Marginal worker: worked less than 183 days, often in seasonal farm work. Everyone else is a non-worker.
• Census 2011: only 39.8% of people were workers. About 60% were non-workers, which points to many dependants and to unemployment or underemployment.
• Work participation rate is workers (main plus marginal) as a percentage of the total population.
• It ranged from about 29.1% (Lakshadweep) to 51.9% (Himachal Pradesh).
• It is high in Himachal, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Arunachal, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya, and in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
• It is higher in less developed areas, where farming and other subsistence work need many hands (exercise 2(iii)).

• Female WPR was about 25% in 2011. PLFS shows it rising since 2017-18, mostly through self-employment (verify current).

• Occupational structure of India (Census 2011, four categories):

• cultivators and agricultural labourers together: 54.6%;
• household industry workers: 3.8%;

• other workers (factories, trade, construction, repair, services): 41.6%.

• NCERT's Table 1.4 calls these primary, secondary and tertiary. The match is only rough, because factory and construction workers fall under "other workers".

• Men outnumber women in every sector, and women are concentrated in the primary sector (Fig. 1.4).
• Sectoral shift: the farm share fell from 58.2% (2001) to 54.6% (2011). PLFS now puts it at about 45-46% (verify current).
• Spatial pattern (exercises 2(iv), 3(ii)):
• many cultivators: Himachal and Nagaland;
• many agricultural labourers: Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and MP;
• mostly other workers: Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry.

12. Migration: internal streams, seasonal migrants, the diaspora and remittances

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• Census 2011 migration data (beyond NCERT; this links to the "induced component" of growth in Section 4):
• Census counts migrants by place of birth or place of last residence.

• By last residence there were about 45.6 crore migrants, about 37% of Indians. Most were women moving after marriage, and most moved within their own state.

• Streams: rural-rural (the largest, mostly women moving on marriage), rural-urban, urban-urban and urban-rural.

• Main inter-state flows: from UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, MP and Odisha to Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Karnataka, and more and more to Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• Push factors: poverty, no land, floods, low wages.

• Pull factors: jobs, better wages, education.

• Seasonal migration: people leave home for short spells, often 2-6 months a year. They go from Bihar, Odisha (Bolangir, Nuapada), Jharkhand and eastern UP to brick kilns, farms, building sites and factories. Censuses and surveys miss many of them. Economic Survey 2016-17 used railway data to estimate about 9 million inter-state migrants a year.

• Reverse migration of 2020: in the COVID-19 lockdown, migrant workers went back from cities to their villages, many on foot. It showed they had little social security. It pushed One Nation One Ration Card and the e-Shram workers' register (2021).
• Indentured labour migration (1834-1917): over a million Indians, mostly from Bihar and eastern UP and also from south India, went on fixed-term contracts to plantations in Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname and South Africa.
• Gulf migration began with the 1970s oil boom. Workers went mainly from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, UP and Bihar to the six GCC states, which now host about 9 million Indians (verify current).
• Indian diaspora (NRIs plus people of Indian origin): about 35 million, the world's largest (verify current).
• Remittances (money migrants send home): India is the top receiver in the world, at about US$120-135 billion a year. Most comes from the US and UAE, and Maharashtra and Kerala receive the most (verify current).

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Exam angles

Prelims — high-yield facts and traps

• First census 1872 (non-synchronous), first complete census 1881. Census 2011 was the 15th. Census 2027 is the 16th: reference date 1 March 2027 (1 October 2026 for snow-bound areas), first digital, counts caste.
• Which source gives what: SRS → birth rate, death rate, IMR, MMR; NFHS → TFR (2.0 in NFHS-5); PLFS → jobs.
• Density: 117 (1951) → 382 (2011). Highest: Bihar among states, Delhi (11,297) among UTs. Lowest: Arunachal (17).
• Physiological density uses net cultivated area. Agricultural density uses agricultural population ÷ net cultivable area. Don't swap the numerators.
• Growth: the only fall was −0.31% in 1911-21. Peak was 24.80% in 1961-71. 2001-11 was 17.64%. Kerala had the lowest growth in 1991-2001 (9.4%).
• "Growth is steadily increasing since 1981" — FALSE.
• Language families: Indo-European 73%, Dravidian 20%, Austric 1.38%, Sino-Tibetan 0.85%.
• Branch matches: Mon-Khmer → Meghalaya (Khasi) and Nicobar; Munda → Santhali (Jharkhand); North Dravidian → Kurukh; Dardic → Kashmiri.
• Grierson recorded 179 languages and 544 dialects. There are 22 scheduled and 11 classical languages (October 2024).
• Religion (2011): Muslims are a majority in the Kashmir valley and Lakshadweep. Buddhists are a majority in Sikkim, Arunachal, Ladakh and Lahul-Spiti, but most Buddhists live in Maharashtra.
• Workers: main = 183 days or more. WPR 39.8% (Lakshadweep 29.1% to Himachal 51.9%). 54.6% of workers were in farming (2011).
• Residence: 68.8% rural (2011). Goa is the most urbanised state; Himachal and Bihar are the most rural. NCERT's "Goa a little over half rural" is outdated (about 38%).
• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao: 22 January 2015, Panipat. NYP 2014 defines youth as 15-29. PC-PNDT Act 1994.
• PVTGs: 75, most in Odisha (13). ST share 8.6%. No STs in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi or Puducherry.

Mains — GS-I and GS-III themes

1. Explain the uneven distribution and density of India's population using physical and socio-economic factors.
2. Phases of population growth since 1901, and why growth has slowed since 1981.
3. The north-south demographic divide: causes, and its effects on migration, Finance Commission transfers and delimitation.
4. Demographic dividend or demographic burden? Assess India's readiness, including the ageing south.
5. Falling child sex ratio and "missing women": where it happens, why, and how well policy has worked.
6. A farm-heavy occupational structure: the sectoral shift and how it varies by region.
7. Seasonal migrants and the 2020 reverse migration: lessons for making social security portable.
8. Remittances and Gulf migration: their role in regional economies such as Kerala.

Current-affairs hooks

• Census 2027: house-listing, digital enumeration, caste data, and its use for delimitation and women's reservation (verify current).
• NFHS-6 release and SRS bulletins on TFR, IMR, MMR and sex ratio at birth (verify current).
• UN World Population Prospects revisions on India's peak and China's decline.
• Demands for classical status and Eighth Schedule inclusion; NEP 2020 language debates.
• Record remittances, Gulf labour policies and the Emigration Bill (verify current).
• PM-JANMAN for PVTGs; the Great Nicobar project and the Shompen.
• Follow-ups to the India Ageing Report and new old-age security schemes.