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Demographics of India

Demographics of India

With an estimated population of 1.1 billion, India is the world's second most populous country. Almost 70% of Indians reside in rural areas, although in recent decades migration to larger cities has led to the exponential rise in the urban population. India's largest urban agglomerations are Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.

India is home to two major linguistic families: Indo-Aryan (spoken by about 74% of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by about 24%). Other languages spoken in India come from the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman linguistic families. The Indian constitution recognises 23 official languages. Hindi and English are used by the Union Government of India for official purposes, wherein Hindi has a de jure priority. Sanskrit enjoy classical language status in India. The number of dialects in India is as high as 1,652.

Although 80.5% of Indians report themselves as Hindus, India's Muslim population is the world's second largest; they constitute 13.4% of the population. Other religious groups include Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.9%), Buddhists (0.8%), Jains (0.4%), Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahá'ís and others.

At the time of India's emergence as a nation-state in 1947, India's literacy rate was 11%. Since then, it has increased to 68.6% (58.25% for females and 78.8% of males). The state of Kerala has the highest literacy rate (91%); Bihar has the lowest (47%). The national sex ratio is 944 females per 1,000 males. India's median age is 24.66, and the population growth rate of 1.38% per annum; there are 22.32 births per 1,000 people.