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Class 12 Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition: cheat sheet
CBSE Social Science. India’s population from the Census: its spread and density, the four phases of growth, rural and urban shares, and workers and their occupations.
Key ideas
- Population data come from the Census, held every ten years; the first complete Census was in 1881.
- People crowd the fertile, well-watered northern plains, deltas and coasts; the Himalayas, deserts and rugged interiors have few.
- Irrigation (in Rajasthan), minerals and energy (in Jharkhand), transport and industry have drawn people to once thinly peopled areas.
- Growth phases: 1901–21 stagnant; 1921–51 steady; 1951–81 population explosion (deaths fell, births stayed high); after 1981 high but slowing.
- Physiological density compares people with cultivated land; agricultural density compares farm people with cultivable land.
- A main worker works at least 183 days a year and a marginal worker less; most workers are still cultivators and agricultural labourers, though their share is falling.
Remember
| Density (2011) | India 382 persons per sq km; Bihar 1,102 (highest state); Arunachal Pradesh 17 (lowest) |
| Physiological density | total population ÷ net cultivated area |
| Agricultural density | agricultural population ÷ net cultivable area |
| Decadal growth rate | (later population − earlier) ÷ earlier × 100 |
| Doubling time | about 70 ÷ annual growth rate (in %) |
| 2011 figures | population about 1,210 million; 68.8% rural; growth 1.64% a year; work participation 39.8% |
Watch out
- Dividing by the total area for physiological density (use the net cultivated area).
- Calling 1951–81 a period of slow growth: it was the population explosion.
- Treating someone who works 100 days a year as a main worker (that needs 183 days).
Worked example
Suppose a district has 3,200 sq km of net cultivable land, 2,688,000 agricultural people and 4,992,000 people in all. Find its agricultural density and its physiological density (taking net cultivated land as the same area).
Working: 2,688,000 ÷ 3,200; 4,992,000 ÷ 3,200
Answer: agricultural 840, physiological 1560 persons per sq km
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