Population:
1,156,897,766 (July 2009 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 31.1% (male 190,075,426/female 172,799,553)
15-64 years: 63.6% (male 381,446,079/female 359,802,209)
65 years and over: 5.3% (male 29,364,920/female 32,591,030) (2009 est.)

Median age:
total: 25.3 years
male: 24.9 years
female: 25.8 years (2009 est.)

Population growth rate:
1.407% (2009 est.)

Birth rate:
21.72 births/1,000 population (2009 est.)

Death rate:
7.6 deaths/1,000 population (July 2009 est.)

Net migration rate:
-0.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)

Urbanization:
urban population: 29% of total population (2008)
rate of urbanization: 2.4% annual rate of change (2005-10 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.1 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.9 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

Infant mortality rate:
total: 50.78 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 49.33 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 52.4 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 66.09 years
male: 65.13 years
female: 67.17 years (2009 est.)

Total fertility rate:
2.68 children born/woman (2009 est.)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
0.3% (2007 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
2.4 million (2007 est.)

HIV/AIDS - deaths:
310,000 (2001 est.)

Major infectious diseases:
degree of risk: high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: chikungunya, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, and malaria
animal contact disease: rabies
water contact disease: leptospirosis
note: highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has been identified in this country; it poses a negligible risk with extremely rare cases possible among US citizens who have close contact with birds (2009)

Nationality:
noun: Indian(s)
adjective: Indian

Ethnic groups:
Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)

Religions:
Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001 census)

Languages:
Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9%
note: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the most widely spoken language and primary tongue of 41% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language (2001 census)

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 61%
male: 73.4%
female: 47.8% (2001 census)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):
total: 10 years
male: 11 years
female: 9 years (2005)

Education expenditures:
3.2% of GDP (2005)