Data at Glance

• People - 1,028,610,328
• Male - 532,156,772
• Female - 496,453,556
• Urban population -286,119,689
• Rural population -742,490,639
• Urban population(%) -27.78
• Sex ratio -933 males per 1000 males
• Density- 324 persons per sq km
• Decadal Population Growth (1991-2001)
  • Absolute - 185,222,440
  • Percentage- 21.54
• Population (0-6 years)
  • Persons - 163,819,614
  • Boys- 84,999,203
  • Girls- 78,820,411
  • Total population (%) - 15.9
  • Sex ratio- 927
• Literacy
  • Males- 336,533,716
  • Females- 224,154,081
  • Persons-560,687,797
• Literacy rate (age 7+)
  • Males - 75.2 %
  • Females -53.6%
  • People- 64.8%

Uttar Pradesh has the largest population followed by Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh in the same order. These five states represent half of the country's population. More than ¼ th of people live in two states of UP and Maharashtra alone. The three southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu together have fewer people than Uttar Pradesh alone.

The uneven nature of the distribution of the population becomes more evident when we try to find out as to what proportion of India's population lives in each state of the Indian Union. This may be described as the Index of Concentration. This index is 16.16% for UttarPradesh, 0.19% for Nagaland, 0.23% for Megalaya and 0.99% for Jammu and Kashmir. The state of West Bengal accommodates 7.79% of the country's population while the shares of the agriculturally developed states of Punjab and Haryana are 2.73% and 2.05% respectively.

A closer examination of the census data shows that the states of the Indian Union have an unequal share not only in population but also in area. There is little relationship between area and population. The largest state in India Rajasthan accounts for 11% of the country's total area and has 5.5% of the country's total population. Madhya Pradesh with an area share of about 10% has a population share of 5.7%.However Uttar Pradesh with 7.6% of total area has a population share of over 16%.