Mumbai: Maharashtra has the highest number of people living in urban centres at 50.8 million with Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur and Pune being the most urbanised districts, and Gadchiroli, Sindhudurg and Hingoli being the least urbanised, according to Census of India 2011.
With an urban population of 45.23 per cent, Maharashtra is the third most urbanised state after Tamil Nadu (48.45 per cent) and Kerala (47.72 per cent).
At the national level, 31.16 per cent of the country's people live in towns and cities.
During the last decade, 2001-2011, over 15.49 million people — 9.72 million in urban and 5.76 million in rural areas — were added to Maharashtra's population which now stands at 112,372,972.
During this period, 62.8 per cent of the population was in added urban areas.
People living in Maharashtra's cities constitute 13.5 per cent of India's urban population, followed by Uttar Pradesh (44.4 million) at 11.8 per cent and Tamil Nadu (34.9 million) at 9.3 per cent.
Female literacy up
The 2011 provisional census has thrown out some other interesting figures: Female literacy has improved more than in males in both rural and urban areas resulting in the literacy gender gap coming down.
Female literacy stands at 67.38 per cent in rural and 85.44 per cent in urban Maharashtra. The districts of Amravati, Sindhudurg, Akola, Wardha and Gondiya top literacy rates and Nandurbar, Dhule, Gadchiroli, Beed and Jalna are bottom.
Maharashtra's sex ratio has also gone up from 922 in 2001 to 925 in 2011.
