Demographics of India

India is the most populous country in the world, with one-sixth of the world's population. "It presents population estimates from 1950 to the present".

Between 1975 and 2010, the population doubled to 1.2 billion, reaching the billion mark in 2000. According to the UN's World Population dashboard, India's population now stands at slightly over 1.428 billion, edging past China's population of 1.425 billion people, as reported by the news agency Bloomberg. In 2015, India's population was predicted to reach 1.7 billion by 2050. 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 2023, the median age of an Indian was 29.5 years, compared to 39.8 for China and 49.5 for Japan; and, by 2030; India's dependency ratio will be just over 0.4. However, the number of children in India 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 many ethnic groups, and every major region is represented, as are four major families of languages (Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan languages) as well as two language isolates: the Nihali language, spoken in parts of Maharashtra, and the Burushaski language, spoken in parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Around 150,000 people in India are Anglo-Indians, and between 25,000-70,000 people are Siddhis, who are descendants of Bantu slaves brought by Arabs, Persians and Portuguese to the western coast of India during the Middle Ages and the colonial period. 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 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 20th century.

History

Prehistory to early 19th century

The following table lists estimates for the population of India (including what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh) from prehistory up until 1820. It includes estimates and growth rates according to five economic historians, along with interpolated estimates and overall aggregate averages derived from their estimates.

Population of India Over Time

India's population has changed significantly due to migrations, technological advancements, and societal developments. Below is a table of historical population estimates:

Estimated Population of India (10,000 BC – 2011)

The population grew from the South Asian Stone Age in 10,000 BC to the Maurya Empire in 200 BC at a steadily increasing growth rate, before population growth slowed down in the classical era up to 500 AD, and then became largely stagnant during the early medieval era era up to 1000 AD. The population growth rate then increased in the late medieval era (during the Delhi Sultanate) from 1000 to 1500.

Under the Mughal Empire, India experienced a high economic and demographic upsurge, due to Mughal agrarian reforms that intensified agricultural production. John F. Richards (1995)
''The Mughal Empire'', page 190
Cambridge University Press 15% of the population lived in urban centres, higher than the percentage of the population in 19th-century British India Abraham Eraly (2007)
''The Mughal World: Life in India's Last Golden Age'', page 5
Penguin Books and contemporary Europe up until the 19th century. These estimates by Abraham Eraly and Paolo Malanima have been criticised by Tim Dyson, who considers them exaggerations and estimates urbanisation of the Mughal Empire to be less than 9% of the population.

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 (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 (in Agra Subah) with up to 800,000 people and Dhaka (in Bengal Subah) 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 is the number of children born per woman. It is based on fairly good data for the entire years. Sources: Our World in Data and Gapminder Foundation.

Life expectancy from 1881 to 1950

The population of India under the British Raj (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...".

Languages

According to the 2001 census, 41.03% of the Indians spoke Hindi natively, while the rest spoke Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Maithili, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and a variety of other languages. There are a total of 122 languages and 234 mother tongues spoken in India. Of these, 22 languages are specified in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution, while 100 are non-specified.

The table below excludes Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati District of Manipur state due to cancellation of census results.

Vital statistics

UN estimates

Census of India: Sample Registration System

Life expectancy

Demographic and Health Surveys
From the Demographic Health Survey:

Regional vital statistics

Neonatal and infant demographics


The table below represents the infant mortality rate 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.

India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven – activists posit that eight million female fetuses may have been aborted between 2001 and 2011.

Ethnic groups

The national Census of India does not recognise racial or ethnic groups within India, but recognises many of the tribal groups as Scheduled Castes and Tribes (see list of Scheduled Tribes in India).
For a list of ethnic groups in the Republic of India (as well as neighbouring countries), see South Asian ethnic groups.
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 United States of any race live in India. Between 300,000 and 1 million Anglo-Indians live in India.
India is a country with a vast diversity of ethnic groups, each with its own distinct culture, language, and traditions. The major ethnic groups in India include the Indo-Aryans, Dravidians, Sino-Tibetans, Austroasiatic peoples, and various indigenous tribes. These groups are spread across different regions of India, each contributing to the country's rich cultural mosaic.

Population size and structure

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.
By 2011, the share of the population living in rural areas decreased to 68.84%, while that of those living in urban areas increased to 31.16%. India's population exceeded that of the entire continent of Africa by 200 million people in 2010. However, because Africa's population growth is extremely high compared to the rest of the world, it is expected to surpass both China and India by the early 2030s.
Comparative demographics

List of states and union territories by demographics

Literacy rate

Religion

Based on the latest Census Data

Population pyramid by religion

The table below summarises India's demographics (excluding the Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati district of Manipur state due to cancellation of census results) according to religion at the 2011 census in per cent. The data are "unadjusted" (without excluding Assam 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.

Caste/tribe

Caste and community statistics as recorded from "Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission" (SEBC) or Mandal Commission of 1979, which was completed in 1983.

India has chosen not to officially count caste population since then.

The following data are from the Mandal report:

Genetics

Y-chromosome DNA

Y-Chromosome DNA Y-DNA represents the male lineage, The Indian Y-chromosome pool may be summarised as follows where haplogroups R-M420, H, R2, L and NOP comprise generally more than 80% of the total chromosomes.

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA mtDNA represents the female lineage. The Indian mitochondrial DNA is primarily made up of Haplogroup M

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 mtDNA, Y-chromosome and autosomal 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 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.

Largest cities of India

.

See also

* Census in British India
* Culture of India
* Non-resident Indian and Overseas Citizen of India
* Immigration to India
* Demographics of Central Asia
* Female foeticide in India
* Hinduism in India
* Jainism in India
* Sikhism in India
* Islam in India
* Christianity in India
* Judaism in India
* Zoroastrianism in India
* Irreligion in India

Government

* 2011 Census of India
* National Commission on Population
* Caste Census

Lists

* List of states and union territories of India by population
* List of states and union territories of India by fertility rate
* List of Indian states by life expectancy at birth
* List of cities in India by population
* List of metropolitan areas in India
* List of million-plus urban agglomerations in India

Charts

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Arnold, David. ''Pandemic India: From Cholera to COVID-19'' (Oxford University Press, 2022).
* Chakravorty, Swastika, Srinivas Goli, and Kuriath S. James.
Family demography in India: Emerging patterns and its challenges
. ''Sage Open'' 11.2 (2021): .
* . Joseph Chamie is former director of the United Nations Population Division and Barry Mirkin is former chief of the Population Policy Section of the United Nations Population Division.
* Chandrasekhar, S., and Ajay Sharma.
Urbanization and spatial patterns of internal migration in India
. ''Spatial demography'' 3.2 (2015): 63–89.
* Sekher, T. V. "Rural demography of India". in '' International handbook of rural demography'' (Springer, Dordrecht, 2012) pp. 169–189.
* Smith, Robert D., and Mohandas K. Mallath.
History of the growing burden of cancer in India: from antiquity to the 21st century
. ''Journal of Global Oncology'' 5 (2019): 1–15.

;Medieval India
* 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

Anthropological Survey of India

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

Ethnic groups in India
Demographic history of India