Talk:Demographics of India

Repetitive
We get it, India has surpassed China to become the most populous country. No need to say it four times in the opening section. Classic Wikipedia, adding stuff without checking whether it's already there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.192.90 (talk) 13:14, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merge with list of Indian states by Aadhaar generation
Check out the given article here if its possible than merge it...   Crown Prince    Talk  05:56, 26 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I Agree. Logical1004 (talk) 10:39, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Regulated or relegated?
Section: Autosomal DNA

“(6) the Dravidian speaking populations were possibly widespread throughout India but are regulated to South India now”

Shouldn’t that read “relegated”?TheTruth-2009 (talk) 06:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the word should have been "relegated", but it would be better to rephrase the sentence to something like "the Dravidian-speaking peoples may have inhabited other parts of India but are now mainly found in South India."  Green Giant  supports  NonFreeWiki  ( talk )  20:10, 3 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I like your wording, it’s neutral, whereas “relegated” suggests they were displaced, but I don’t know enough about population movements to be able to say if they were displaced or not. Also, if they were previously “widespread”, then “other parts” is too weak, and I would suggest “many other parts”, or “much”, or you might have a better idea.TheTruth-2009 (talk) 18:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

love the site
I Love the site because its like true stuff about India's birth rate its so amazing cause the other sites I go to they change up their information Bribribad53 (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Wrong data
The first table with UN estimates in the section "Vital Statistics" has wrong(-ish) statistics for the year 2022 (last row). The UN report lists three scenarios, "high", "middle" and "low". This row is taken from the "low" scenario, but should probably be replaced by the "medium" scenario. For example, the "medium" total fertility rate is 2.03, but the table gives the "low" TFR of 1.76, which is totally inconsistent with the data estimates from previous years.

==== J., 29 November 2023

The data in Table 2, below religious demographics relate to 2001 and not 2011. The references at sl nos. 30, 31, 32 ... refer to 2001 census. Not only that the 2011 census data on religion are yet to be released

--K N Unni (talk) 17:11, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Population distribution in India by states
Pls check Wrong data added Ref.( Census_Data_2001) -- Bo ng an &reg;  &#8594;TalkToMe&#8592;  07:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Sex Ratio
The article uses two definitions of sex ratio. Number of females per 1000 males and number of males per 100 females. The latter one is more widely used internationally, while the former is used only by Indian census.

Being a used by many as a reference for several purposes, it is better to stick to one definition, preferably the international definition. However the existence and use of the other definition in the literature can be mentioned in the outset. This would avoid confusing the readers

--K N Unni (talk) 17:24, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting article
I think the fact that India is the second most populous country in the world is the most significant demographic fact (about India). If anyone disagrees, feel free to have another attempt at rewriting the first sentence. Whatever you do, do not include the phrase "are inclusive of" - unless you are happy to come back in the next life as a gerund. Inclusive is a 'weasely' word, which must be used very carefully, and only when needed. Kind regards,     RedAlasdair, Banknock   86.17.152.168 (talk) 06:26, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

muslim denominations
The current text states 'The modern Indian republic is home to (...) 20% of Shia, 10% of Muslims, (...) worldwide.' Does 'Muslims' in this case refer to all denominations of islam, including Shia? Or does it refer only to Sunni muslims? If it's the latter, I think it would be more neutral to change this line to 'The modern Indian republic is home to (...) 20% of Shia Muslims, 10% of Sunni Muslims, (...) worldwide.'. If it's the former, I think it would be clearer to change this line to 'The modern Indian republic is home to (...) 10% of Muslims, including 20% of Shia Muslims (...) worldwide.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.156.175.194 (talk) 12:15, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Salient features
The Salient Features" quote: "India's population has exceeded that of the entire continent of Africa by 200 million people.[19] However, because Africa's population growth is nearly double that of India, it is expected to surpass both China and India by 2025."

This quote is irrelevant because it makes no sense to compare the COUNTRY of India with the CONTINENT of Africa. It can be deleted and there is no loss of information about the people of India. The second sentence in particular presents a prediction for Africa's population (a reference is needed); it is entirely out of place for the topic of India and belongs to the wikipedia topic for Africa instead. 69.3.118.67 (talk) 04:02, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Total population
I have changed the population given in the lede back to 1.285bn from 1.322bn for the following reasons: AWhiteC (talk) 09:34, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The 1.322 figure seems to come from here, but there is ambiguity: as well as giving 1.322bn, it also gives 1.327bn, rounding to the nearest least significant digit.
 * That source says: "based on the latest United Nations estimates". It would be better to quote the UN source directly.
 * I suspect the 1.322 figure is inconsistent with other estimates of Indian population given elsewhere on the Demographics of India page, which must be confusing for readers.

I'm writing at about 8:17 AM UTC on 16 December 2021 and the Worldometer total population number crossed 1,400,117,000, but the page still had the text "The current population of India is 1,399,716,988 as of Wednesday, December 15, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.". I'm not sure how I can determine if it crossed 1.4 billion on 15 December or 16 December or how to cite it in a checkable way, but I thought the article should change to note this, since it currently has 'In December 2021, India's Population had nearly touched 1.4 Billion: "The current population of India is 1,399,531,786 as of Friday, December 10, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data."[8]' in the first paragraph, with [8] just being the live (not static) worldometers population clock page. ( https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/india-population/ ) I've changed this text to 'In December 2021, India's population crossed 1.4 Billion. (The Worldometers clock page said "The current population of India is 1,399,716,988 as of Wednesday, December 15, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data." on December 16, 2021, after the population was already above 1.4 billion )', with the same reference.75.91.166.94 (talk) 08:31, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

It should be noted that the Indian government seems to have lower estimations of their own population (or rather had lower estimates in November, 2019), not expecting it to cross 1.4 billion until 2025. This is presumably based on the 2011 census (I'm sure it says exactly what it's based on in the paper somewhere), the next census I think being in 2021, so presumably mostly done as I write this but probably not published. ( https://nhm.gov.in/New_Updates_2018/Report_Population_Projection_2019.pdf ) The preceding comment is mine from before I logged in btw.DubleH (talk) 09:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The 2021 census has been put back by a year (or now rather more, as I still haven't encountered a precise date), but I think you're right about the two parallel data series, the UN estimates since 1951 exceeding the census count by around 3% - so the UN projection for 2022 is 1,406 million but the census (if taken this year) will presumably come in at 1.36bn or so going by past performance, a reasonable discrepancy for such a vast undertaking. Precisian (talk) 07:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Population distribution in India by states
Fix the table Population distribution in India by states. Some moron decided to play with separators. Le Grand Bleu (talk) 02:09, 7 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm seeing it OK here, using the Safari browser. What are you getting there? AWhiteC (talk) 18:54, 9 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I came to ask the same thing. Should the number separators be as they are international (as in thousands, millions, billions, etc.) or should they be as they are in India (thousands, lakhs, crores, etc.). In any case, they should be consistent. I am happy to fix them, but I need to know which format to fix them to. The table currently has both formats. My personal preference is to use the international format, but I am new to this, so I don't know what it should be. Amiwikieditor (talk) 10:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I would strongly prefer the international convention (thousands, millions, billions, etc.) as this page is for English-speakers everywhere, not just in India. Unless you find that there is some sort of Wikipedia policy on the Indian convention (thousands, lakhs, crores, etc.), I would feel free to change it if I were you. WP:BOLD. Go for it! AWhiteC (talk) 18:33, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree. This is done. There was so much inconsistency in that table too with the separators. My OCD feels better now. Can someone eyeball it just to see if I didn't miss any number. Amiwikieditor (talk) 01:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Table and numerical formatting
I will try to cleanup over time - but others should help out too. Amiwikieditor (talk) 09:04, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The numbers are formatted differently in different places - presumable because put in by different authors.
 * The cells are aligned differently in different places.

Style Guide for Tables on the page
There is an abundance of tables on this page. They are formatted differently, which makes for a poor reading experience. So, here is an attempt to define a style which I will use to start formatting the tables to a consistent style on the page. I will add to this guide as I come across any challenges while formatting the tables which should be included in the style guide.

I tried looking for a style guide elsewhere on Wikipedia that solves these particular issues but couldn't find it. So, here is my attempt. If I use this guide on more than this page, then perhaps I will move this out to some central page and refer to it from there.

Please help by suggesting changes or adding to this guide. Here goes.


 * 1) All text should be left-aligned.
 * 2) All numbers that denote any magnitude should be right-aligned.
 * 3) Consider abbreviating large numbers to thousands (k) or millions (M).
 * 4) Add percent values without a percent sign, place the percent sign in the header or the column to denote that the column contains percentages.
 * 5) Align column labels/titles the same was as the cell data is aligned.
 * 6) Maintain same number of places after the decimal by adding extra zeroes when needed.
 * 7) Add a title to every table.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amiwikieditor (talk • contribs) 14:13, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * 8) Only add "sortable" to the table style if there are multiple columns which when sorted will show differing and useful views of the data Amiwikieditor (talk) 14:47, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * 9) Use 0 template for formatting large numbers. Amiwikieditor (talk) 15:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The reasoning for point 2 and 6 above is to make it easy to do a visual magnitude comparison between the numbers.

Amiwikieditor (talk) 14:05, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with all of that! AWhiteC (talk) 21:22, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I have started applying these points to some of the tables. I wrote a quick and dirty excel macro to generate the bulk of the markup of a table and have been using it to generate the code for the tables to ensure consistency in syntax too. Amiwikieditor (talk) 15:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Can we talk about the structure of this article?
I would like to spend time improving this article. So far, I have focused on adding consistency to tables and such. But I think that the overall structure of the article can also be improved (grouping of sections, moving population data together, etc.). I am seeing help, suggestions, and opinions on what others think about this. I will start making changes to the best of my understanding on how it should be arranged in a few days. Amiwikieditor (talk) 07:01, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Go for it! WP:BOLD. You might want to look first at some other "Demographics of ..." or "Demography of ..." articles. AWhiteC (talk) 19:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yeah, going for it. Reading up on demography in general and reading other articles as well. Some of this work is overwhelming and would be nice to have a co-pilot. For instance, the way the religion data is presented is not clear in the sense that the sources cited (the census of India) doesn't necessarily present it in the same way. Also, the sources cited are not specific and generic, so not sure how to proceed there. But, I will keep working on this. Amiwikieditor (talk) 15:07, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The data we present is usually calculated from the census data, often by summing up districtwise figures. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I gathered as much - however, we could still link to the relevant file on the census website. Also, I couldn't find in the census data information about the exclusions mentioned in the article. I would be happy to work with someone to see if any of this data should be updated or revisited. I know, I am supposed to be bold on Wikipedia, but I don't want to go and change someone's hard work without really understanding the context. Amiwikieditor (talk) 12:53, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Data in the tables
Specifically - the table in the section called Demographics_of_India - I can't find this data either in the reference to UN cited, or on the India Census website. Should I just update this section with the data found on either of these two references (they are different in terms of data). Amiwikieditor (talk) 14:25, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I would vote "yes" to that. I think the Indian state census data should be used, as surely the UN data will be derived from that (so how come it is different?). AWhiteC (talk) 17:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

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Arab males raped real indian women?
Are a majority of Indians descendants of middles eastern males who invaded and raped real indian women? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.45.46.234 (talk) 12:08, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Causes of population growth
I reverted some recent content by SADAF GARAYEVA on the causes of population increase. This content was very valuable, but lacked citations. Please resubmit the content, but: That would be a very useful addition to the article. AWhiteC (talk) 21:38, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * provide references to source(s) – a source was stated in the edit summary, but that's not the place for it
 * avoid long paragraphs
 * put the content in a new section entitled "Causes of population growth" (or other)

Diversity
Only the continent of Africa exceeds the linguistic, genetic and cultural diversity of the nation of  India.

What a disingenuous sentence. “Diversity” all depends upon how it's measured. Places with equally high diversity can be found all around the world. This sentence seems like taken from some (though referenced) source without putting any thought into it.106.78.60.232 (talk) 10:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of "Template:Largest cities of India"
Template:Largest cities of India has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 10:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Please
Can anyone please move the graphs - in the introductary part - towards the right? I face problems in reading in scrolling down. Please shift it aside and under the infobox template Utkarsh555 (talk) 17:36, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Unsourced pre-1800 population table
Where is the table under "Pre-history to 19th century" sourced from? I've checked the next few refs in the prose and they all sharply disagree with it. Daß Wölf 06:05, 13 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I was wondering who these "five economic historians" were. The claimed numbers from 500 BC to 1400 AD are total fantasy, laughable if they weren't such dangerous peddling of chauvinist myths. The only vaguely reliable estimates are for 1595 and from 1801 onward, the rest revanchist nonsense involving numbers that couldn't possibly be supported by the resources and productive technology available. Common sense calls for deleting the whole thing, but wikiquette seems to forbid it, an invitation to toxic polemicists to dump gibberish in the site knowing that real data are unavailable to replace it (serious historians having better things to do with their time than churn out imaginary figures for the sake of it). Precisian (talk) 03:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

India Education Program course assignment
This article was the subject of an educational assignment supported by Wikipedia Ambassadors through the India Education Program.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 20:00, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Population table
The population table pre-1800 appears to be both unsourced, and wrong. Based on the article about Maurya Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire the population of the Empire was between 15 and 30 million. Yet this page claims that it was almost 150 million! In my opinion the table should be removed, unless some actual sources are provided 188.33.240.85 (talk) 10:52, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Source for India surpassing China?
Plus that is only by one estimate probably. It is probably debatable. Alexysun (talk) 18:17, 14 May 2023 (UTC)


 * UN DESA Policy Brief No. 153: India overtakes China as the world’s most populous country | Department of Economic and Social Affairs Alexysun (talk) 20:43, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Historical Population Graph (China vs India)
Data for the graph is only tangetially related to the topic and outdated. Also notably, Pre-Qing estimates for Chinese population are significantly below scholarly consensus. Most notable sources are on Wikipedia Article "Population History of China". 222.166.241.5 (talk) 16:22, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect value in Table: Vital Statistics, UN Estimates, 2022
The crude birth rate for 2022 should be 15.6, not 16.3 (assuming the figures for population and births are correct, of course). 146.200.60.233 (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Last I checked, it is 16.3 according to the source.
 * Edit: I think you may have been confused by the figure for the number of births. Someone had changed it without explanation. I have restored the figure from the source. ~ Rajan51 (talk) 11:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay. Thanks. 146.200.60.233 (talk) 12:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)