Which among the following Classes of Towns in India holds the highest percentage of Urban Population as per the Census 2011?

Correct — B, Class III. Of the 377,106,125 people the 2011 Census counted as urban, Class III towns held 41,833,295, or 11.09 per cent — more than any other class on this option list. Class II held 32,179,677, which is 8.53 per cent; Class IV held 24,012,860, or 6.37 per cent; Class VI held 1,678,025, or 0.44 per cent. Class I towns and agglomerations, those of a hundred thousand people and above, held 264,745,519 or 70.20 per cent of urban India, and they dominate the distribution so completely that the question has to leave them off the list to have an answer worth asking for. What makes Class III beat Class II is arithmetic that runs against intuition. A Class II settlement has between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand people and a Class III settlement between twenty and fifty thousand, so each Class II place is the larger. But there are 100 urban agglomerations and 374 towns in Class II, against 75 agglomerations and 1,298 towns in Class III. Roughly 474 settlements averaging about 68,000 people give 32.2 million; roughly 1,373 settlements averaging about 30,000 give 41.8 million. Below the top class, the number of settlements grows faster than their size falls.

• (a)Class II — The intuitive pick and the wrong one. Class II settlements are individually bigger than Class III settlements, which is what tempts, but they are far fewer — 474 against 1,373 — and their combined population is 32.18 million against Class III's 41.83 million. In share of urban India that is 8.53 per cent against 11.09 per cent.
• (c)Class IV — Towns of ten to twenty thousand people. There are more of them than there are Class III towns, but each is small enough that the total comes to 24.01 million, or 6.37 per cent of urban India — below both Class III and Class II.
• (d)Class VI — The smallest class of all, urban settlements of under five thousand people. Its 424 towns hold 1,678,025 people between them, which is 0.44 per cent of urban India and the lowest share of the six classes.

The Census of India sorts urban settlements into six size classes by population: Class I is a hundred thousand and above, Class II fifty thousand to just under a hundred thousand, Class III twenty thousand to just under fifty thousand, Class IV ten to twenty thousand, Class V five to ten thousand and Class VI below five thousand. The A-04 tables report population and settlement counts for each. The resulting pyramid is extremely top-heavy: seven urban Indians in ten live in a Class I town or agglomeration, and the remaining five classes divide less than thirty per cent between them.

Two habits protect you on a question of this shape. The first is to separate size of settlement from population of the class. A class total is the product of how big its settlements are and how many there are, and below Class I the count rises much faster than the size falls, so the class totals do not decline in the order the class numbers suggest. Class III outweighs Class II, and only from Class IV downward does the sequence become monotonic. The second habit is to notice which class the paper has left out. Class I is missing from the options here because it would end the question in a line, and its absence is a signal that the examiner wants the ranking among the smaller classes. A warning is due about sources on this item. Percentages published for this exact question in circulating answer keys are fabricated — one gives Class II 13.3 per cent, another gives Class III 15.43 per cent, and the two do not agree with each other or with the Census. The figures used here are computed from the Registrar General's own workbooks, and the six class totals reconcile exactly with the published all-classes total.

• Urban population of India, Census 2011: 377,106,125, which is 31.16 per cent of the country's 1,210,854,977 people.
• Class I 264,745,519 (70.20 per cent) across 298 urban agglomerations and 170 towns.
• Class II 32,179,677 (8.53 per cent) across 100 agglomerations and 374 towns; Class III 41,833,295 (11.09 per cent) across 75 agglomerations and 1,298 towns.
• Class IV 24,012,860 (6.37 per cent); Class V 12,656,749 (3.36 per cent); Class VI 1,678,025 (0.44 per cent).
• The population thresholds are: Class I 100,000 and above, Class II 50,000 to 99,999, Class III 20,000 to 49,999, Class IV 10,000 to 19,999, Class V 5,000 to 9,999, Class VI under 5,000.

• Assuming the class totals fall in class order. Class III carries more people than Class II, because there are nearly three times as many Class III settlements.
• Missing that Class I has been left off the option list, and then answering as though the question were about all six classes.
• Trusting a circulating percentage for this item. Two of them are fabricated and contradict each other; the Census tables are the only safe source.

As a which-class or which-state question on Census urban data, or as a definitional item on what counts as a town, an urban agglomeration or a census town.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  According to the Census of India, a Class III town is one with a population of

  • (a)50,000 to 99,999
  • (b)20,000 to 49,999
  • (c)10,000 to 19,999
  • (d)5,000 to 9,999

  Answer(b) 20,000 to 49,999 — Class II covers 50,000 to 99,999 and Class IV covers 10,000 to 19,999.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As per Census 2011, the share of India's population living in urban areas was approximately

  • (a)21 per cent
  • (b)26 per cent
  • (c)31 per cent
  • (d)38 per cent

  Answer(c) 31 per cent — 377.11 million urban people out of 1,210.85 million, or 31.16 per cent.