Uttar Pradesh Quiz: Population and Census of Uttar Pradesh

The Census of 2011 counted about 19.98 crore persons in Uttar Pradesh, roughly 16.5 per cent of the population of the country, which is the largest share of any state and more than the population of most countries of the world.

The exact count was 19,98,12,341 persons, which is usually rounded to twenty crore in discussion, and candidates should recognise both the rounded and the exact form.

Uttar Pradesh had 829 persons on every square kilometre in 2011, more than twice the national density, because the alluvial plain of the Ganga and the Yamuna supports a very dense rural population.

Uttar Pradesh had 912 females for every 1,000 males in 2011, below the national figure, and its child sex ratio for the age group of nought to six years was 902.

The literacy rate of Uttar Pradesh in 2011 was 67.68 per cent, with male literacy at 77.28 per cent and female literacy at 57.18 per cent, so the gap between men and women was about twenty percentage points.

Gautam Buddha Nagar, the district of Noida and Greater Noida, had the highest literacy rate in the state in 2011, which follows from its industrial and service economy and the educated workers it attracts.

Allahabad district, renamed Prayagraj in 2018, was the most populous district of Uttar Pradesh in 2011 with about 59.5 lakh people, and Mahoba in Bundelkhand was the least populous.

Ghaziabad, which lies on the edge of Delhi and is almost entirely built up, recorded the highest density of population among the districts of Uttar Pradesh in 2011, far above the state figure of 829 persons per square kilometre.

The census is taken under the Census Act of 1948, which gives the Union Government power to notify the exercise, appoint census officers and require every person to answer their questions, while making the answers confidential and not usable as evidence.

The census of 1881 was the first in which the count was taken across the country on one reference date, and W. C. Plowden served as the first Census Commissioner of India; from then on a census has been held every ten years.