Consider the following cities of Uttar Pradesh and arrange them in descending order in terms of their population. I. Ghaziabad II. Kanpur III. Agra IV. Lucknow Select the correct answer from the code given below :
- (a)II, I, IV, III
- (b)I, II, III, IV
- (c)III, II, I, IV
- (d)II, IV, I, III
Correct — D, II, IV, I, III, that is Kanpur, then Lucknow, then Ghaziabad, then Agra. This is the order on the Census 2011 URBAN AGGLOMERATION figures: Kanpur about 29.20 lakh, Lucknow about 29.03 lakh, Ghaziabad about 23.76 lakh and Agra about 17.60 lakh. Note how the question is decided in two stages. Agra is comfortably the smallest of the four, which alone kills options (b) and (c). That leaves (a) and (d), which differ only in whether Ghaziabad or Lucknow takes second place — and Lucknow's agglomeration is more than five lakh larger than Ghaziabad's, so (d) is the answer. ONE HONEST CAVEAT a candidate should carry away: the top of this list depends on which unit is counted. Kanpur leads Lucknow by fewer than 18,000 people out of roughly 29 lakh on the agglomeration figures, but if the CITY proper — the municipal corporation area — is counted instead, Lucknow is returned slightly ahead of Kanpur and the first two positions swap. The commission's key uses the urban-agglomeration reading, which is the reading the Census itself uses when it ranks India's largest cities, and that is what makes (d) correct.
- (a)II, I, IV, III — Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Agra — right at both ends, wrong in the middle. It promotes Ghaziabad above Lucknow. Ghaziabad's agglomeration stood at about 23.76 lakh against Lucknow's 29.03 lakh in 2011, a gap of more than five lakh. Ghaziabad is the fastest-growing of the four, being part of the National Capital Region, and that reputation for explosive growth is what tempts candidates to move it up the list — but growth rate is not size.
- (b)I, II, III, IV — This is simply the order in which the four cities are printed in the stem — I, II, III, IV — offered as a decoy for candidates who are guessing. It would make Ghaziabad the largest and Lucknow the smallest of the four, which reverses the truth at both ends: Lucknow's agglomeration is about 29.03 lakh and Ghaziabad's about 23.76 lakh.
- (c)III, II, I, IV — Agra, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Lucknow — it puts Agra first and Lucknow last, and both are wrong. Agra's agglomeration was about 17.60 lakh in 2011, the smallest of the four by a wide margin, and Lucknow's about 29.03 lakh, the largest or second largest depending on the unit counted. Agra's fame as a tourist and monument city has nothing to do with its population rank.
The Census of India reports urban population in two different units, and questions like this one live in the gap between them. A 'city' or 'town' in the statutory sense is the area of the municipal corporation or municipality. An 'urban agglomeration' is a continuous urban spread made up of a town together with its adjoining outgrowths, or of two or more physically contiguous towns and their outgrowths — the built-up reality rather than the administrative boundary. Because municipal limits are drawn politically and are often decades out of date, the agglomeration is the unit used when the Census ranks India's largest cities, and it is normally the larger of the two figures. On the 2011 agglomeration figures Kanpur ranked eleventh in India and Lucknow twelfth, with Ghaziabad fourteenth and Agra twenty-third.
There are two lessons here, and the second matters more than the first. The first is procedural: in a four-item ordering question, do not try to rank all four at once. Fix the item you are surest about — here, that Agra is the smallest — strike out every option that contradicts it, and then decide the single remaining comparison. Two of the four options fall away immediately, and the question reduces to Ghaziabad versus Lucknow for second place. The second lesson is about population data generally. Kanpur and Lucknow are separated by well under one per cent, so the 'correct' order genuinely flips depending on whether the municipal corporation or the agglomeration is counted, and different textbooks print different orders for exactly that reason. When a ranking question involves two entries that close, the right instinct is to ask which unit the source is using rather than to assume one settled answer exists. Uttar Pradesh is also the most populous state in India, and its urban hierarchy — a large number of medium cities rather than one dominant metropolis — is itself an examinable feature.
- Census 2011 urban agglomeration populations: Kanpur about 29,20,000; Lucknow about 29,03,000; Ghaziabad about 23,76,000; Agra about 17,60,000.
- On those figures the four ranked 11th, 12th, 14th and 23rd respectively among India's urban agglomerations.
- Kanpur leads Lucknow by fewer than 18,000 people — under one per cent — so the order of the top two is sensitive to the unit counted.
- On the CITY (municipal corporation) figures rather than the agglomeration figures, Lucknow is returned slightly ahead of Kanpur, reversing the first two places; the commission's key uses the agglomeration reading.
- An urban agglomeration in Census usage is a continuous urban spread comprising a town and its outgrowths, or two or more contiguous towns with their outgrowths — usually larger than the municipal area.
Descending order II, IV, I, III = option (d). Fixing Agra as the smallest removes two options at once; the remaining choice is only whether Lucknow or Ghaziabad is second, and Lucknow leads it by over five lakh.
- Confusing growth rate with size. Ghaziabad grows fastest among these four because it sits in the National Capital Region, but in 2011 it was still well behind both Kanpur and Lucknow.
- Ranking from fame rather than figures. Agra is the best-known of the four internationally and the smallest of the four in population.
- Ignoring which unit the source counts. Kanpur and Lucknow are separated by under one per cent, so the city-proper order and the agglomeration order disagree; this key uses the urban agglomeration.
UPPSC asks descending-order and chronological-order questions in almost every paper, and it asks them about Uttar Pradesh's own cities more often than about anything else. It asked candidates to rank Indian states by 2011 population in 2024, and it asked in 2020 in which census years Kanpur and Lucknow crossed a million — the same two cities that decide this question. UPSC prefers the same data in 'which of these are million-plus cities' form. A candidate who memorises the Census 2011 agglomeration figures for the top six or seven Uttar Pradesh cities is prepared for all of these.
Which of the following are among the million-plus cities in India on the basis of data of the Census, 2001? 1. Ludhiana 2. Kochi 3. Surat 4. Nagpur Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1, 2 and 3 only
- (b) 2, 3 and 4 only
- (c) 1 and 4 only
- (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
The same underlying data source and the same unit — the million-plus list is compiled on urban agglomeration figures, not municipal ones. It is the clearest illustration of why the agglomeration reading is the standard one when the Census ranks cities, which is exactly the reading the 2022 UPPSC key uses.
Kanpur and Lucknow cities of U.P. became million cities as per the census of India in the year
- (a) 1951 and 1961 respectively
- (b) 1961 and 1971 respectively
- (c) 1971 and 1981 respectively
- (d) 1981 and 1991 respectively
Answer(c) 1971 and 1981 respectively
The same two cities, from the same commission, two years earlier — and the same underlying point that Kanpur crossed the million mark before Lucknow did. Anyone who has learnt the Kanpur–Lucknow relationship for that question already holds the fact that decides this one.
Write in descending order the following States on the basis of their population as per Census, 2011 : 1. Bihar 2. Andhra Pradesh 3. Uttar Pradesh 4. West Bengal Choose the correct answer with the help of the following codes :
- (a) 3, 4, 1, 2
- (b) 1, 3, 2, 4
- (c) 1, 3, 4, 2
- (d) 3, 1, 4, 2
Answer(d) 3, 1, 4, 2
The identical question type two years later — four units, Census 2011 population, descending order — but at the state level rather than the city level. It confirms that descending-order population questions are a fixture of this paper and that Census 2011 figures are worth learning as ranked lists, not as isolated numbers.
- practice — not a real PYQ
According to Census 2011, which one of the following was the largest urban agglomeration of Uttar Pradesh ?
- (a)Lucknow
- (b)Kanpur
- (c)Ghaziabad
- (d)Varanasi
Answer(b) Kanpur — its urban agglomeration was about 29.20 lakh in 2011, narrowly ahead of Lucknow's 29.03 lakh, with Ghaziabad about 23.76 lakh. The margin is under one per cent, and on municipal-corporation figures rather than agglomeration figures Lucknow comes first instead.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Census of India, the term 'urban agglomeration' refers to
- (a)any settlement with a population above one lakh
- (b)a continuous urban spread made up of a town together with its outgrowths, or of two or more contiguous towns with their outgrowths
- (c)the area falling strictly within the limits of a municipal corporation
- (d)a district in which more than half the population lives in towns
Answer(b) a continuous urban spread made up of a town together with its outgrowths, or of two or more contiguous towns with their outgrowths — it measures the built-up urban reality rather than the administrative boundary, and is normally larger than the municipal area.