Age structure:
0-14 years: 34% (male 174 578 403; female 164 755 937)
15-64 years: 61% (male 310 995 355; female 288 344 336)
65 years and over: 5% (male 23 051 278; female 22 278 374) (July 1998 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.71% (1998 est.)

Birth rate: 25.91 births/1 000 population (1998 est.)

Death rate: 8.69 deaths/1 000 population (1998 est.)

Net migration rate: -0.08 migrant(s)/1 000 population (1998 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.08 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.04 male(s)/female (1998 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 63.14 deaths/1 000 live births (1998 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 62.9 years
male: 62.11 years
female: 63.73 years (1998 est.)

Total fertility rate: 3.24 children born/woman (1998 est.)

Nationality:
noun: Indian(s)
adjective: Indian

Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72% Dravidian 25% Mongoloid and other 3%

Religions: Hindu 80% Muslim 14% Christian 2.4% Sikh 2% Buddhist 0.7% Jains 0.5% other 0.4%

Languages: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national political and commercial communication Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people Bengali (official) Telugu (official) Marathi (official) Tamil (official) Urdu (official) Gujarati (official) Malayalam (official) Kannada (official) Oriya (official) Punjabi (official) Assamese (official) Kashmiri (official) Sindhi (official) Sanskrit (official) Hindustani a popular variant of Hindu/Urdu is spoken widely throughout northern India
note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous other languages and dialects for the most part mutually unintelligible

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 52%
male: 65.5%
female: 37.7% (1995 est.)