Population: 1,014,003,817 (July 2000 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 34% (male 175,228,164; female 165,190,951)
15-64 years: 62% (male 324,699,562; female 301,821,383)
65 years and over: 4% (male 23,925,371; female 23,138,386) (2000 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.58% (2000 est.)

Birth rate: 24.79 births/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Death rate: 8.88 deaths/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Net migration rate: -0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2000 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: 1.03 male(s)/female
total population: 1.07 male(s)/female (2000 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 64.9 deaths/1,000 live births (2000 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 62.5 years
male: 61.89 years
female: 63.13 years (2000 est.)

Total fertility rate: 3.11 children born/woman (2000 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 Hindi/Urdu 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.)