As per the 2011 Census, India's population percentage is _______ of the total Global population.

Question

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Correct — option (2), 17.5%. As per the 2011 Census, India's population stood at about 1,210.19 million, and against the world population of the time — roughly 6.9 to 7 billion — this worked out to close to 17.5% of the global total. This figure is one of the most widely cited demographic facts about India, usually presented alongside its natural counterpart: India holds about 17.5% of the world's population while occupying only about 2.4% of the world's land area — the same 2.4 figure that appears as option (1) in this very question, planted there because it is the correct answer to a different, closely related question (India's share of world land area) rather than to this one (India's share of world population). The pairing of a large population share with a small land-area share is exactly what is used across Indian geography and economy textbooks to illustrate India's extraordinarily high population density and the pressure this places on land, water and other resources — a 'huge population on a small landmass' framing that makes the population figure worth remembering precisely.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) 2.4% is a genuine, well-known statistic about India — but it is India's share of the world's total land area, not its share of world population. It is deliberately placed here because it is the natural companion figure to 17.5%, and the pair (2.4% of world land, 17.5% of world population) is commonly quoted together to illustrate India's population density. Selecting 2.4 answers the wrong half of that pair.  (c) 31.9% does not correspond to India's share of world population by any standard 2011-era estimate; it is well above the correct figure of roughly 17.5%. There is no widely cited demographic statistic that places India's global population share near 32%, so this option does not match any genuine Census-era comparison.  (d) 25.1% overstates India's actual share of world population as of the 2011 Census by a wide margin. India and China together, the world's two most populous countries, made up roughly a third of the global population around 2011, but India alone did not approach a quarter of the world's people — its individual share was close to 17.5%, not 25.1%.

Concept: The 2011 Census recorded India's population at 1,210.19 million (about 1.21 billion), making it the world's second most populous country at the time, behind China. Set against the contemporaneous global population of roughly 6.9-7 billion, India's share worked out to approximately 17.5% of all people on Earth. This statistic is almost always paired in Indian geography and economics teaching with India's share of the world's land area, about 2.4%, because the contrast between the two numbers is the standard illustration of India's population pressure: a country holding well under a fortieth of the world's land supporting more than a sixth of the world's people.

State PCS 2025 Q46 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q46 — Geography PYQ with Answer