Historical population of India and China

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

is the second most populated country in the world with a sixth of the world's population. According to official estimates, India's population stood at 1.38 billion. Between 1975 and 2010, the population doubled to 1.2 billion, reaching the billion mark in 2000. India is projected to surpass China to become the world's most populous country by 2023. It is expected to become the first country to be home to more than 1.5 billion people by 2030, and its population is set to reach 1.7 billion by 2050. However, its pace of population growth is slowing. In 2017 its population growth rate was 0.98%, ranking 112th in the world; in contrast, from 1972 to 1983, India's population grew by an annual rate of 2.3%. In 2022, the median age of an Indian was 28.7 years, compared to 38.4 for China and 48.6 for Japan; and, by 2030; India's

dependency ratio The dependency ratio is an age-population ratio of those typically not in the labor force (the ''dependent'' part ages 0 to 14 and 65+) and those typically in the labor force (the ''productive'' part ages 15 to 64). It is used to measure the press ...

will be just over 0.4. However, the number of

children in India India is the second most populated country in the world with nearly a fifth of the world's population. According to the population stood at . India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. I ...

peaked more than a decade ago and is now falling. The number of children under the age of five peaked in 2007, and since then the number has been falling. The number of Indians under 15 years old peaked slightly later (in 2011) and is now also declining. India has more than two thousand ethnic groups, and every major

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

is represented, as are four major

families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideal ...

of languages (

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

, Dravidian,

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

and

Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

) as well as two language isolates: the

Nihali language Nihali, also known as Nahali or erroneously as Kalto, is a moribund language isolate that is spoken in west-central India (in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra), with approximately 2,000 people in 1991 out of an ethnic population of 5,000. The Nihal ...

, spoken in parts of Maharashtra, and the

Burushaski Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people ...

language, spoken in parts of Jammu and Kashmir. 1,000,000 people in India are Anglo-Indians and 700,000

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

citizens are living in India. They represent over 0.1% of the total population of India. Overall, only the continent of Africa exceeds the linguistic, genetic and cultural diversity of the nation of India. The

sex ratio The sex ratio (or gender ratio) is usually defined as the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. Many species d ...

was 944 females for 1000 males in 2016, and 940 per 1000 in 2011. This ratio has been showing an upwards trend for the last two decades after a continuous decline in the last century.

History

Prehistory to early 19th century

The following table lists estimates for the population of India (including what are now

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

) from prehistory up until 1820. It includes estimates and growth rates according to five economic historians, along with

interpolated In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data points. In engineering and science, one often has a n ...

estimates and overall aggregate averages derived from their estimates.

Estimates of historical world population This article lists current estimates of the world population in history. In summary, estimates for the progression of world population since the Late Middle Ages are in the following ranges: Estimates for pre-modern times are necessarily fraugh ...

The population grew from the

South Asian Stone Age The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in South Asia. Evidence for the most ancient ''Homo sapiens'' in South Asia has been found in the cave sites of Cudappah of India, Batadombalena and Belilena in ...

in 10,000 BC to the Maurya Empire in 200 BC at a steadily increasing growth rate, before population growth slowed down in the Early Medieval Era up to 700 AD, and then started decreasing the up to 1500 AD.

Angus Maddison Angus Maddison (6 December 1926 – 24 April 2010) was a distinguished British economist specialising in quantitative macro economic history, including the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development. Maddison lectured at sev ...

(2001), '' The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective''
pages 241–242

OECD Development Centre The OECD Development Centre was established in 1961 as an independent platform for knowledge sharing and policy dialogue between Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries and developing economies, allowing these co ...

(2001), '' The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective''
page 236

Under Mughal Empire, India experienced a high economic and demographic upsurge, due to Mughal

agrarian reform Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land ...

s that intensified agricultural production.

John F. Richards John F. Richards (November 3, 1938 – August 23, 2007) was a historian of South Asia and in particular of the Mughal Empire. He was Professor of History at Duke University, North Carolina, and a recipient in 2007 of the Distinguished Contributio ...

(1995)
''The Mughal Empire'', page 190

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

15% of the population lived in urban centres, higher than the percentage of the population in 19th-century

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Abraham Eraly Abraham Eraly (15 August 1934 — 8 April 2015) was an Indian writer of history, a teacher, and the founder of Chennai-based magazine ''Aside''. Early life Abraham Eraly was born in the village of Ayyampalli in Ernakulam district, Kerala on 15 ...

(2007)
''The Mughal World: Life in India's Last Golden Age'', page 5

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. up until the 19th century. Those estimates were criticised by

Tim Dyson Tim Dyson (born 1949) is a British demographer with a focus on Indian population history. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Population Studies at the London School of Economics. He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001. Bibli ...

, who considers them exaggerations. According to Dyson, urbanisation of the Mughal empire was less than 9% Under the reign of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605) in 1600, the Mughal Empire's urban population was up to 17 million people, larger than the urban population in Europe. By 1700, Mughal India had an urban population of 23 million people, larger than British India's urban population of 22.3 million in 1871.

Nizamuddin Ahmad Khwaja Nizam-ud-Din Ahmad Bakshi (also spelled as Nizam ad-Din Ahmad and Nizam al-Din Ahmad) (born 1551, died 1621/1030 AH) was a Muslim historian of late medieval India. He was son of Muhammad Muqim-i-Harawi. He was Akbar's ''Mir Bakhshi''. His w ...

(1551–1621) reported that, under Akbar's reign, Mughal India had 120 large cities and 3,200 townships. A number of cities in India had a population between a quarter-million and half-million people, with larger cities including

Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra i ...

(in

Agra Subah The Agra Subah was a subah of the Mughal Empire, established in the reign of Akbar and one of the empire's core territories until it was eclipsed by the rapidly expanding Maratha Empire. To the north it bordered Delhi and Awadh, to the east ...

) with up to 800,000 people and

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city i ...

(in

Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...

) with over 1 million people. Mughal India also had a large number of villages, with 455,698 villages by the time of Aurangzeb (reigned 1658–1707).

Late 19th century to early 20th century

The

total fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were t ...

is the number of children born per woman. It is based on fairly good data for the entire years. Sources:

Our World in Data Our World in Data (OWID) is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality. It is a project of the Global Change Data Lab, a re ...

and

Gapminder Foundation Gapminder Foundation is a non-profit venture registered in Stockholm, Sweden, that promotes sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and ...

Life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

from 1881 to 1950 The population of India under the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

(including what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh) according to censuses: Studies of India's population since 1881 have focused on such topics as total population, birth and death rates, geographic distribution, literacy, the rural and urban divide, cities of a million, and the three cities with populations over eight million: Delhi, Greater Mumbai (Bombay), and Kolkata (Calcutta). Mortality rates fell in the period 1920–45, primarily due to biological immunisation. Suggestions that it was the benefits of colonialism are refuted by academic thinking: "There can be no serious, informed belief… that… late colonial era mortality diminished and population grew rapidly because of improvements in income, living standards, nutrition, environmental standards, sanitation or health policies, nor was there a cultural transformation…".

Salient features

India occupies 2.41% of the world's land area but supports over 18% of the world's population. At the 2001 census 72.2% of the populationRural-Urban distribution
''Census of India: Census Data 2001: India at a glance >> Rural-Urban Distribution.'' Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 26 November 2008. lived in about 638,000 villages and the remaining 27.8% lived in more than 5,100 towns and over 380 urban agglomerations. India's population exceeded that of the entire continent of Africa by 200 million people in 2010. However, because Africa's population growth is nearly double that of India, it is expected to surpass both China and India by 2025.

Comparative demographics

List of states and union territories by demographics

Religious demographics

The table below summarises India's demographics (excluding the Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati District of

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of ...

state due to cancellation of census results) according to religion at the 2011 census in per cent. The data are "unadjusted" (without excluding

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

and Jammu and Kashmir); the 1981 census was not conducted in Assam and the 1991 census was not conducted in Jammu and Kashmir. Missing citing/reference for "Changes in religious demagraphics over time" table below. ;Characteristics of religious groups Muslim Demographics of India

Neonatal and infant demographics

India Male to Female Sex Ratio 1941 1951 1961 1981 1991 2001 2011

The table below represents the

infant mortality rate Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...

trends in India, based on sex, over the last 15 years. In the urban areas of India, average male infant mortality rates are slightly higher than average female infant mortality rates. Some activists believe India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven – activists posit that eight million female

fetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal dev ...

es may have been aborted between 2001 and 2011. These claims are controversial. Scientists who study

human sex ratio In anthropology and demography, the human sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. Like most sexual species, the sex ratio in humans is close to 1:1. In humans, the natural ratio at birth between males and females is sligh ...

s and demographic trends suggest that a birth sex ratio between 1.08 and 1.12 can be due to natural factors, such as the age of mother at the baby's birth, the age of father at conception, number of babies per couple, economic stress, endocrinological factors, and others. The 2011 census birth sex ratio in India, of 917 girls to 1000 boys, is similar to birth sex ratios (870–930 girls to 1000 boys) observed in Japanese, Chinese, Cuban, Filipino and Hawaiian ethnic groups in the United States between 1940 and 2005. They are also similar to birth sex ratios (below 900 girls to 1000 boys) observed in mothers of different age groups and gestation periods in the United States.

Population within the age group of 0–6

Population above the age of seven

2011-2016 Life Expectancy map for India by states

Literacy rate

Linguistic demographics

According to the 2001 census, 41.03% of the Indians spoke

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

natively, while the rest spoke Assamese,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

, Maithili,

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, Odia, Punjabi,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' specified in the Eighth Schedule of

Indian Constitution The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...

, while 100 are non-specified. The table below excludes Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati District of

state due to cancellation of census results.

Largest cities of India

Vital statistics

UN estimates

Census of India: sample registration system

Life expectancy

Source: ''UN World Population Prospects''

Structure of the population

Structure of the population (9 February 2011) (Census) age wise are shown below: Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (03.III.2016):

Fertility rate

From the Demographic Health Survey:

Regional vital statistics

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated. ;Total population 1,166,079,217 (July 2009 est. CIA), 1,210 million (2011 census), 1,389,637,446 (May 2022 est.) ;Rural population: 62.2%; male: 381,668,992, female: 360,948,755 ;Age structure: ''0–14 years:'' 27.34% (male 186,087,665/female 164,398,204)
''15–24 years:'' 17.9% (male 121,879,786/female 107,583,437)
''25–54 years:'' 41.08% (male 271,744,709/female 254,834,569)
''55–64 years:'' 7.45% (male 47,846,122/female 47,632,532)
''65+ years:'' 6.24% (male 37,837,801/female 42,091,086) (2017 est.) ;Median age: Total: 28.7 years Male: 28 years female: 29.5 years (2020 est.) ;Population growth rate : 0.67% (2022 est) ;Literacy rate: 74% (age 7 and above, in 2011)Ranking of states and union territories by literacy rate: 2011
Census of India Report (2013)
81.4% (total population, age 15–25, in 2006) ;Per cent of population below poverty line: 22% (2006 est.) ;Unemployment rate: 7.8% ;Net migration rate: 0.00 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2020 est.) ;Sex ratio: ''At birth:'' 1.12 male(s)/female
''Under 10 years:'' 1.13 male(s)/female
''15–24 years:'' 1.13 male(s)/female
''24–64 years:'' 1.06 male(s)/female
''65 years and over:'' 0.9 male(s)/female
''Total population:'' 1.08 male(s)/female (2017 est.) ;

at birth: ''Total population:'' 69.7 years
''Male:'' 68.4 years
''Female:'' 71.2 years (2020 est.) ;Total fertility rate: 2.35 (2020 est.) The TFR (total number of children born per women) by religion in 2005–2006 was: Hindus, 2.7; Muslims, 3.1; Christians, 2.4; and Sikhs, 2.0. ;Religious Composition: Hindus 79.5%, Muslims 15%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.7%, other and unspecified 2% (2011 est.) ;Scheduled castes and tribes: Scheduled castes: 16.6% (2011 census); scheduled tribes: 8.6% (2011 census) ;Languages See

Languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known ...

and

List of languages by number of native speakers in India India is home to several hundred languages. Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (c. 77%), the Dravidian (c. 20.61%), the Austroasiatic ( Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Sino-Tibetan (c. 0.8% ...

. There are 216 languages with more than 10,000 native speakers in India. The largest of these is

with some 337 million, and the second largest is

with 238 million. 22 languages are recognised as

official languages An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...

. In India, there are 1,652 languages and

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

s in total.

Caste

Caste and community statistics as recorded from "Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission" (''SEBC) or Mandal Commission of 1979. This was completed in 1983.'' There has not yet been a proper consensus on contemporary figures. The following data are from the Mandal report:

Population projections

India is projected to overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2023. These projections make assumptions about future fertility and death rates which may not turn out to be correct in the event. Fertility rates also vary from region to region, with some higher than the national average and some lower than China's.

2020 estimate

In millions

Ethnic groups

The national Census of India does not recognise

racial A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

or ethnic groups within India, but recognises many of the tribal groups as

Scheduled Castes and Tribes The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

(see

list of Scheduled Tribes in India This is a list of Scheduled Tribes in India. The term "Scheduled Tribes" refers to specific tribes whose status is acknowledged to some formal degree by national legislation. Andaman and Nicobar Islands In accordance with The Scheduled Castes ...

). According to a 2009 study published by Reich ''et al.''., the modern Indian population is composed of two genetically divergent and heterogeneous populations which mixed in ancient times (about 1,200–3,500 BP), known as Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI). ASI corresponds to the Dravidian-speaking population of southern India, whereas ANI corresponds to the Indo-Aryan-speaking population of northern India. 700,000 people from the

of any race live in India. Between 300,000 and 1 million Anglo-Indians live in India. For a list of ethnic groups in the Republic of India (as well as neighbouring countries) see

South Asian ethnic groups South Asian ethnic groups are an ethnolinguistic grouping of the diverse populations of South Asia, including the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. While Afghanistan is variously considered to ...

Genetics

Y-chromosome DNA

Y-Chromosome DNA

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...

represents the male lineage, The Indian

Y-chromosome The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abs ...

pool may be summarised as follows where

haplogroup A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the el, ἁπλοῦς, ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and en, group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share ...

s R-M420, H, R2, L and NOP comprise generally more than 80% of the total chromosomes. * H ~ 30% * R1a ~ 34% * R2 ~ 15% * L ~ 10% * NOP ~ 10% (Excluding R) * Other Haplogroups 15%

Mitochondrial DNA

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

represents the female lineage. The Indian mitochondrial DNA is primarily made up of Haplogroup M * Haplogroup M ~ 60% *

Haplogroup UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

~ 15% * Haplogroup N ~ 25% (Excluding UK)

Autosomal DNA

Numerous genomic studies have been conducted in the last 15 years to seek insights into India's demographic and cultural diversity. These studies paint a complex and conflicting picture. * In a 2003 study, Basu, Majumder ''et al''. have concluded on the basis of results obtained from

and

autosomal An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in autosom ...

markers that "(1) there is an underlying unity of female lineages in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small; (2) the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated; (3) the Austroasiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others; (4) a major wave of humans entered India through the northeast; (5) the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austroasiatic tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes; (6) the Dravidian speaking populations were possibly widespread throughout India but are regulated to South India now; (7) formation of populations by fission that resulted in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary populations; (8) the upper castes show closer genetic affinities with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those of northern India; (9) historical gene flow into India has contributed to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural affinities." * In a later 2010 review article, Majumder affirms some of these conclusions, introduces and revises some other. The ongoing studies, concludes Majumder, suggest India has served as the major early corridor for geographical dispersal of modern humans from out-of-Africa. The archaeological and genetic traces of the earliest settlers in India has not provided any conclusive evidence. The tribal populations of India are older than the non-tribal populations. The autosomal differentiation and genetic diversity within India's caste populations at 0.04 is significantly lower than 0.14 for continental populations and 0.09 for 31 world population sets studied by Watkins ''et al''., suggesting that while tribal populations were differentiated, the differentiation effects within India's caste population was less than previously thought. Majumder also concludes that recent studies suggest India has been a major contributor to the gene pool of southeast Asia. * Another study covering a large sample of Indian populations allowed Watkins ''et al''. to examine eight Indian caste groups and four endogamous south Indian tribal populations. The Indian castes data show low between-group differences, while the tribal Indian groups show relatively high between-group differentiation. This suggests that people between Indian castes were not reproductively isolated, while Indian tribal populations experienced reproductive isolation and drift. Furthermore, the genetic

fixation index The fixation index (FST) is a measure of population differentiation due to genetic structure. It is frequently estimated from genetic polymorphism data, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) or microsatellites. Developed as a special case o ...

data show historical genetic differentiation and segregation between Indian castes population is much smaller than those found in east Asia, Africa and other continental populations; while being similar to the genetic differentiation and segregation observed in European populations. * In 2006, Sahoo ''et al''. reported their analysis of genomic data on 936 Y-chromosomes representing 32 tribal and 45 caste groups from different regions of India. These scientists find that the haplogroup frequency distribution across the country, between different caste groups, was found to be predominantly driven by geographical, rather than cultural determinants. They conclude there is clear evidence for both large-scale immigration into ancient India of Sino-Tibetan speakers and language change of former Austroasiatic speakers, in the northeast Indian region. * The genome studies conducted up until 2010 have been on relatively small population sets. Many are from just one southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana, which was part of the state until June 2014). Thus, any conclusions on demographic history of India must be interpreted with caution. A larger national genome study with demographic growth and sex ratio balances may offer further insights on the extent of genetic differentiation and segregation in India over the millenniums.

Charts

Notes

References

Bibliography

*. Joseph Chamie is former director of the

United Nations Population Division The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) is part of the United Nations Secretariat and is responsible for the follow-up to major United Nations Summits and Conferences, as well as services to the United Nations Ec ...

and Barry Mirkin is former chief of the Population Policy Section of the United Nations Population Division. ;Historical *Lal, K. S. (1978). Growth of Muslim population in medieval India (A.D. 1000–1800). Delhi, Research Publications. *Lal, K. S. (1995). Growth of scheduled tribes and castes in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

External links

Census of India
government site with detailed data from 2001 census
Population of India as per Census India 2011

Census of India map generator
generates maps based on 2001 census figures
Demographic data for India
provides sources of demographic data for India
2001 maps
provides maps of social, economic and demographic data of India in 2001
Population of India 2011 map
distribution of population amongst states and union territories
India's Demographic Outlook: Implications and Trends
*
World Population Prospects
: Country Profile – India
Aggregated demographic statistics from Indian and global data sources

Demographic statistics for India – online on Bluenomics

India comparing with China population projection graph
Based on data from database of UN Population Division {{Census of India Demographic history of India