Demographics of India 

Although India occupies only 2.4% of the world's land area, it supports over 15% of the world's population. Only China has a larger population. Almost 40% of Indians are younger than 15 years of age. More than 70% of the people live in more than 550,000 villages, and the remainder in more than 200 towns and cities. Over thousands of years of its history, India has had invasions from the the Middle East, Central Asia, and the West; Indian people and culture have absorbed and changed these influences to produce a remarkable racial and cultural synthesis.

Religion, caste, and language are major determinants of social and political organization in India today. The government has recognized 22 languages as official; Hindi is the most widely spoken. India also has the second largest number of English speakers in the world with over 150 million people speaking English in India.

Although more than 80% of the people are Hindu, India also is the home of more than 130 million Muslims—one of the world's largest Muslim populations. The population also includes Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Ayyavazhi, Bahá'ís, and Jews.

The caste system reflects Indian occupational and socio-religiously defined hierarchies. Traditionally, there are four broad categories of castes (varnas), including a category of outcastes, earlier called "untouchables" but now commonly referred to as "dalits." Within these broad categories there are thousands of castes and subcastes, called jatis, whose relative status varies from region to region. Despite economic modernization and laws countering discrimination against the lower end of the class structure, the caste system remains an important source of social identification for most Hindus and many non-Hindus as well, thus making it a potent factor in the political life of the country.

Population: 1,080,264,388 (July 2005 est.)

Age structure:

• 0-14 years: 31.2%(male 173,634,432/female 163,932,475)
• 15-64 years: 63.9% (male 356,932,082/female 333,283,590)
• 65 years and over: 4.9% (male 26,542,025/female 25,939,784) (2005 est.)

    The average age of Indians is 26 years.

Population growth rate: 1.4% (2005 est.)

Birth rate: 22.32 births/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Death rate: 8.28 deaths/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Net migration rate: -0.07 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Sex ratio:

• at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
• under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
• 15-64 years: 1.07 male(s)/female
• 65 years and over: 1.03 male(s)/female
• total population: 1.07 male(s)/female (2000 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 

• total: 56.29 deaths/1,000 live births 
• female: 55.69 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.) 
• male: 56.86 deaths/1,000 live births

Life expectancy at birth:

• total population: 64.35 years
• male: 63.57 years
• female: 65.16 years (2005 est.)

Total fertility rate: 2.78 children born/woman (2005 est.)

Nationality:

• noun: Indian(s)
• adjective: Indian

Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan(Caucasoid) 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%

Religions: Hindu 81.8%, Muslim 12.1%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, Others 1.9% (2001)

Languages: 

English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi is the primary Official language of the Indian government and primary tongue of 30% of the people. Among the other major languages, Telugu (second highest spoken language in India), Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi and Tamil all have about 50 million or more speakers within the boundaries of India (with more living in other countries). There are 22 languages recognised by the Indian Constitution - Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Religion-wise breakdown

India's census was conducted since ancient times. Kautilya's Arthashastra describes the collection of population statistics for taxation. The British were the first to conduct one in modern times conducting it in 1871.

As per the India Census Commission's recently released 2001 census figures give a breakdown of various parameters according to religion.

1. All figures in %. 
2. Sex Ratio*: no of females/1000 males. 
3. Others includes Jews, Parsis and Bahá'ís 

• Jews number about 4,000. 2,000 reside in Bombay. 
• Parsis number about 65,000, down from 71,000 

Ethnic Groups in India

The people of India belong to different Ethnic groups. These ethnic groups are as follows.

Negritos: The Negritos or the Brachycephalic (broad headed) people from Africa were the earliest people to inhabit India. They have survived in their original inhabitat in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese, and the Great Andamanese are some of the examples. Some hill tribes like Irulas, Kodars, Paniyans, and Kurumbas are found in some patches in Southern part of mainland India.

Pro-Australoids or Austrics: These groups were next to come to India after the Negritos. They are now found in some parts of India, Myanmar and the islands of South-East Asia. Their languages have survived in Central and Eastern India.

Mongoloids: These people are found in the North eastern part of India in the states of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura. They are also found in Northern parts of West Bengal, Sikkim, and Ladakh.

Dravidians: These are the people of South India. They have been believed to come before the Aryans. They have different sub-groups like the Paleo-Mediterranean, the true Mediterranean, and the Oriental Mediterranean.

Western Bracycephals: These include the Alpinoids, Dinarics and Armenoids. The Parsis (who came long after the Indo-Aryans) and Kodavas also fall in this category.

Indo-Aryans: This group were the last ones to immigrate to India. They came to India somewhere between 2000 and 1500 B.C. They are now mainly found in the northern and central parts of India.