India's total population is 1.21 billion, final census reveals

India's total population stands at 1.21 billion, which is 17.7% more than the last decade, and population growth of females was higher than that of males. According to the final census released by Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, India's total population as on March 1, 2011 is 1,210,726,932 or 1.21 billion - an increase of 181.96 million persons in absolute number of population during 2001-11.

There was an increase of 90.97 million males and increase of 90.99 million females.  India's population grew by 17.7% during 2001-11, against 21.5% in the previous decade. Among the major states, highest growth in population has been recorded in Bihar (25.4%) while 14 states and Union Territories have recorded population growth above 20%.

Altogether, 833.5 million persons live in rural areas as per Census 2011, which was more than two-third of the total population, while 377.1 million persons live in urban areas.

Urban proportion has gone up from 17.3% in 1951 to 31.2% in 2011. Empowered Action Group (EAG) states have lower urban proportion (21.1%) in comparison to non EAG states (39.7%). Highest proportion of urban population is in NCT Delhi (97.5 %). Top five states in share of urban population are

Ø     Goa (62.2 %)

Ø     Mizoram (52.1 %)

Ø     Tamil Nadu (48.4 %)

Ø     Kerala (47.7 %)

Ø     Maharashtra (45.2 %)

Literacy rate in India in 2011 has increased by 8% to 73% in comparison to 64.8% in 2001. While male literacy rate stands at 80.9% - which is 5.6% more than the previous census, the female literacy rate stands at 64.6% - an increase of 10.9% than 2001. The highest increase took place in Dadra and Nagar Haveli by 18.6 points (from 57.6% to 76.2%), Bihar by 14.8 points (from 47.0% to 61.8%), Tripura by 14.0 points (from 73.2% to 87.2%). Improvement in female literacy is higher than males in all states and UTs, except Mizoram (where it is same in both males and females) during 2001-11.

The gap between literacy rate in urban and rural areas is steadily declining in every census. Gender gap in literacy rate is steadily declining in every census. In Census 2011, the gap stands at 16.3 points.

Top five states and UTs, where literacy rate is the highest, are

Ø     Kerala (94 %)

Ø     Lakshadweep (91.8 %)

Ø     Mizoram (91.3 %)

Ø     Goa (88.7 %)

Ø     Tripura (87.2)

 The bottom five states and UTs are Bihar (61.8%), Arunachal Pradesh (65.4%), Rajasthan (66.1%), Jharkhand (66.4%) and Andhra Pradesh (67%). The density of population in the country has also increased from 325 in 2001 to 382 in 2011 in per sq km. Among the major states, Bihar occupies the first position with a density of 1106, surpassing West Bengal which occupied the first position during 2001.

Delhi (11,320) turns out to be the most densely inhabited followed by Chandigarh (9,258), among all states and UTs, both in 2001 and 2011 Census. The minimum population density works out in Arunachal Pradesh (17) for both 2001 and 2011 Census.