India Contents Etymology History Early modern India

India by language

The language families of South Asia

With 1,210,193,422 residents reported in the 2011 provisional census report,^[349] India was the world's second-most populous country. Its population grew by 17.64% from 2001 to 2011,^[350] compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade (1991–2001).^[350] The human sex ratio, according to the 2011 census, is 940 females per 1,000 males.^[349] The median age was 28.7 as of 2020.^[285] The first post-colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361 million people.^[351] Medical advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution" have caused India's population to grow rapidly.^[352]
The average life expectancy in India is at 70 years—71.5 years for women, 68.7 years for men.^[285] There are around 93 physicians per 100,000 people.^[353] Migration from rural to urban areas has been an important dynamic in India's recent history. The number of people living in urban areas grew by 31.2% between 1991 and 2001.^[354] Yet, in 2001, over 70% still lived in rural areas.^[355][356] The level of urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 Census to 31.16% in the 2011 Census. The slowing down of the overall population growth rate was due to the sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas since 1991.^[357] According to the 2011 census, there are 53 million-plus urban agglomerations in India; among them Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, in decreasing order by population.^[358] The literacy rate in 2011 was 74.04%: 65.46% among females and 82.14% among males.^[359] The rural-urban literacy gap, which was 21.2 percentage points in 2001, dropped to 16.1 percentage points in 2011. The improvement in the rural literacy rate is twice that of urban areas.^[357] Kerala is the most literate state with 93.91% literacy; while Bihar the least with 63.82%.^[359]