MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 41 of 100

Correct — option (2), "Only (b) is correct." Statement (b) is true and statement (a) is false, and the question can be settled by ranking alone, without remembering a single figure. Statement (a) claims India was denser than South Korea in 2017. It was not. On the World Bank series (persons per sq km of land area), India stood at about 457 and the Republic of Korea at about 527 in 2017 — Korea is the denser of the two. This surprises candidates because India is enormous in both area and population while South Korea is a small country of roughly fifty million people. But density is a ratio, and Korea's denominator is tiny: about 100,000 sq km, some seventy per cent of it mountain, with the population packed into a handful of coastal and river plains and more than four in ten Koreans living in the Seoul Capital Area alone. A small country that is heavily urbanised will routinely out-rank a large, partly rural one. So statement (a) fails. Statement (b) claims India was less dense than Bangladesh in 2017. It was, and by a wide margin — Bangladesh stood at roughly 1,246 persons per sq km, close to 2.7 times India's figure. Bangladesh is essentially one great deltaic plain, cultivable and habitable almost end to end, carrying a population of over 160 million on about 148,000 sq km. Among countries of appreciable size it is the densest in the world. Statement (b) therefore stands. One statement true, one false, and it is the second one that survives — so the credited choice is option (2). A note on the numbers: the Census of India 2011 puts India's density at 382 persons per sq km, while international series for 2017 give about 457. The two differ because they use different years and different land-area denominators. The candidate does not need to reconcile them. Every published source, on every denominator, places Bangladesh above India and India below South Korea — the ranking is what the question tests, and the ranking is not in dispute.

• (1)Only (a) is correct. — Option (1) would require India to be denser than South Korea and NOT less dense than Bangladesh — both halves fail. India's roughly 457 persons per sq km in 2017 sits below Korea's 527 and far below Bangladesh's 1,246. This choice is the classic size illusion: candidates reason from India's absolute population of 1.3 billion rather than from the ratio, and forget that a mountainous, hyper-urbanised peninsula of 100,000 sq km can pack people more tightly than a subcontinent can.
• (3)Both (a) and (b) are correct. — Option (3) is the trap for the candidate who checks only the half he is sure of. Statement (b) is comfortably true, and it is tempting to wave statement (a) through on the strength of it. But "Both" needs every component to hold, and (a) does not: South Korea's density exceeds India's on the World Bank series for 2017 and on every neighbouring year. One failed component is enough to kill a "Both" option, however solid the other component looks.
• (4)None of the above. — Option (4) is an escape option, and an escape option is only available when every named alternative can be shown to fail. Here it cannot be taken, because statement (b) survives — India was less dense than Bangladesh in 2017 on any published dataset, so at least one of the printed statements is correct and "None" is closed off. Reach for an escape option after you have knocked down the named ones, never as a way of avoiding that work.

Population density is the simplest measure of population pressure: total population divided by land area, conventionally reported as persons per square kilometre. Because it is a ratio, it is driven as much by the denominator as by the numerator — a country with a modest population on a very small or largely unusable land base can be far denser than a country with a huge population spread over a subcontinent. Demographers therefore distinguish arithmetic density (people per unit of total land) from physiological or nutritional density (people per unit of arable land), and from agricultural density (farming population per unit of arable land). The three can rank countries very differently. Egypt is an extreme illustration: its arithmetic density is unremarkable because the desert counts in the denominator, while its physiological density is among the highest on earth because almost the whole population lives on the narrow Nile strip. South Korea versus India is a milder version of the same effect, driven here by mountains and by extreme urban concentration rather than by desert.

MPSC and UPSC both like the comparative-density format because it can be answered by a student who understands the concept and cannot be answered by a student who has only memorised India's own figure. The year stamp — here 2017 — is decorative; the ordering among these countries has not changed across the decade, so nothing turns on the exact vintage of the data. The useful thing to carry into the hall is the league table rather than the digits. Among countries of significant size in 2017 the order runs roughly: Bangladesh about 1,246 · Republic of Korea about 527 · Netherlands about 509 · India about 457 · Japan about 348 · Sri Lanka about 347 · Pakistan about 290 · Nepal about 195 · China about 149 · United States about 36. City-states sit off this scale entirely — Singapore was near 7,882. Note in particular that China, whose population was then comparable to India's, is roughly a third as dense, because its land area is about three times India's and much of its west is desert and high plateau.

• World Bank population density (persons per sq km of land area), 2017: Bangladesh ≈ 1,246 · Republic of Korea ≈ 527 · India ≈ 457 · China ≈ 149 · United States ≈ 36. The India–Korea and India–Bangladesh orderings hold across the surrounding years too.
• Census of India 2011 records India's density as 382 persons per sq km, against 325 in 2001. International series for later years report higher figures because of both the later date and a different land-area denominator — the ranking against other countries is unaffected.
• Census 2011 state extremes: Bihar is the densest State at 1,106 persons per sq km and Arunachal Pradesh the least dense at 17; among Union Territories the NCT of Delhi records 11,320. Maharashtra stands at 365, marginally below the national average of 382.
• South Korea's density is explained by its denominator, not its numerator: roughly 100,000 sq km of land, a large majority of it hill and mountain, with the population overwhelmingly urban and heavily concentrated in the Seoul Capital Area.
• Bangladesh is the densest large country in the world because it is almost entirely the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta — flat, alluvial and habitable throughout — carrying over 160 million people on about 148,000 sq km, an area smaller than Maharashtra plus Gujarat.

• Reasoning from absolute population size to density. India has roughly twenty-five times South Korea's population and is still the less dense of the two, because it also has roughly thirty-three times the land area.
• Treating a 'Both (a) and (b)' option as safe once one statement is verified. A compound option needs every component to hold; verifying the easy half and assuming the other is the commonest way this format is lost.
• Trying to reconcile Census 2011's 382 with an international 2017 figure of about 457 and concluding one of them must be wrong. They use different years and different land-area denominators; for a ranking question neither number needs to be defended.
• Taking 'None of the above' because two look-alike statements feel like a trick. Escape options must be earned by eliminating every named choice, and here statement (b) plainly survives.

The Commission asks density in two shapes. The first is this comparative pair — two soft statements ranking India against named countries, answerable from the concept without any figure. The second is direct recall from the Census: the densest and least dense States, Maharashtra's own density, or the national figure for 2011. UPSC has historically preferred the conceptual angle (physiological versus arithmetic density, the man–land ratio) while State commissions lean on Census tables. Prepare both by learning the ordering rather than the digits, and by fixing three or four anchor numbers — India 382 in 2011, Bihar the densest State, Arunachal the least — which between them let you place almost any figure the examiner offers.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As per the Census of India 2011, which State recorded the highest population density, and which the lowest ?

  • (a)West Bengal (highest) and Sikkim (lowest)
  • (b)Bihar (highest) and Arunachal Pradesh (lowest)
  • (c)Kerala (highest) and Mizoram (lowest)
  • (d)Uttar Pradesh (highest) and Nagaland (lowest)

  Answer(b) Bihar (highest) and Arunachal Pradesh (lowest). Census 2011 records Bihar at 1,106 persons per sq km, ahead of West Bengal and Kerala, while Arunachal Pradesh at 17 is the least dense State. The NCT of Delhi at 11,320 is denser than any State but is a Union Territory, so it does not answer a question phrased about States — a distinction the examiner uses often.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The difference between arithmetic density and physiological density of population lies in the fact that physiological density is calculated with reference to :

  • (a)the total land area of the country
  • (b)the total cultivated or arable land area
  • (c)the urban population only
  • (d)the working population only

  Answer(b) the total cultivated or arable land area. Arithmetic density divides total population by total land area; physiological density divides total population by arable land, and so measures pressure on the food-producing base. Egypt is the standard illustration — modest on the arithmetic measure because the desert counts in the denominator, extremely high on the physiological measure because virtually the whole population lives on the Nile valley and delta.