metadata
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
- en
tags:
- india
- census
- demographics
- districts
- population
- literacy
pretty_name: India Census 2011 - District Level
size_categories:
- n<1K
India Census 2011 — District Level
Clean, versioned district-level data from India's 2011 Census. 640 districts. 29 columns. Zero missing values. Ready for pandas.
Quick Start
import pandas as pd
from huggingface_hub import hf_hub_download
path = hf_hub_download(
repo_id="indiaset/census-2011",
filename="census_2011_districts_final.parquet",
repo_type="dataset"
)
df = pd.read_parquet(path)
print(df.shape) # (640, 29)
What's In This Dataset
One row per district. All 640 districts of India as they existed on Census night — midnight of February 28, 2011.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| state_code | Census 2011 state code |
| state_name | Official state/UT name |
| district_code | Census 2011 district code |
| district_name | District name as per Census |
| lgd_code | LGD permanent district code |
| district_name_lgd | District name as per LGD |
| pop_total | Total population |
| pop_male | Male population |
| pop_female | Female population |
| pop_under6_total | Children under 6 years |
| pop_sc | Scheduled Caste population |
| pop_st | Scheduled Tribe population |
| literate_total | Literate persons |
| literate_male | Literate males |
| literate_female | Literate females |
| illiterate_total | Illiterate persons |
| workers_total | Total workers |
| workers_male | Male workers |
| workers_female | Female workers |
| non_workers_total | Non workers |
| literacy_rate | Literate / Total × 100 |
| sex_ratio | Females per 1000 males |
| workforce_participation | Workers / Total × 100 |
Validation
District populations sum to exactly 1,210,854,977 — the official Census 2011 total for India. Zero discrepancy.
Key Insights
- Most literate district: Pathanamthitta, Kerala — 88.74%
- Least literate district: Alirajpur, Madhya Pradesh — 28.77%
- Literacy gap across India: 60 percentage points
- National sex ratio: 943 females per 1000 males
Known Limitations
⚠️ This data reflects 2011 boundaries. Key things to know:
- Telangana does not exist — it was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. All Telangana districts appear under Andhra Pradesh here.
- New districts created after 2011 are not present — India had 640 districts in 2011, now has 800+.
- Population figures are from 2011 — use for structural comparisons, not current headcounts.
- Yanam and Mahe (Puducherry enclaves) LGD codes were manually verified and patched — not in the LGD export.
Source & License
- Maintainer: Ansuman Jaiswal (github.com/iam-ansuman)
- Source: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India (censusindia.gov.in)
- LGD Codes: Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India (lgdirectory.gov.in)
- Original license: GODL-India
- This dataset: CC-BY-4.0
If you use this dataset, please cite:
Jaiswal, Ansuman. (2026). India Census 2011 - District Level [Dataset]. indiaset. Hugging Face. https://huggingface.co/datasets/indiaset/census-2011
Cleaning Pipeline
Full reproducible pipeline available at: github.com/indiaset/census-2011-pipeline