India Population Census District Handbook Archive

Census of

Glossary

309 districts+ 9 not enumerated

Show districts with:

Glossary

Handbook
The District Census Handbook for one district in one census.
Part
A section of the handbook set out by that year's census, named as the census printed it. The 1951 handbooks had no common part scheme; each state published its own, and where a state split a district's handbook, its books are listed by the part number printed on them ("Part I", "Part II"). [1,2]
Volume
One bound book. A large part could be split into several volumes ("Part X-C, Volume II").
Combined
Two or more parts bound as one volume, written as the covers print them: "Part XII-A & B".
Missing
The archive has no copy of the handbook or of a part.
Incomplete
The archive holds a part, but other districts in the same state have a volume of that part that this district lacks, so a volume is probably missing. It may instead be that the volume was never published for this district, unlike the others, but we cannot tell which. A part is also incomplete when the archive holds a later volume but not an earlier one (Volume II but not Volume I); there the earlier volume is taken to have existed, since the numbering implies it. Incomplete districts are counted among those with missing books.
No known gaps
The archive holds a handbook for the district and no missing part or volume has been found. For years without a part scheme (1951, 1961) completeness has not been verified.
Partial gaps
The archive holds a handbook for the district, but a part is missing or incomplete. Counted among the districts with missing books.
No handbook
The archive holds no handbook for the district (a book for a district formed later does not count). Counted among the districts with missing books.
Not enumerated
Outside the Census of India that year: not yet Indian territory, or no census was held there.
* Formed later
A book for a district formed after the census, listed under the district(s) it came from.
District, state
Districts are those of each census as defined by the India State and District Evolution Database (ISDED), named as the census named them. States are the state names on that year's handbooks. [3]

Sources

  1. Census of India 2011, Assam, District Census Handbook Kamrup, Part XII-A, Foreword (history of the DCHB, 1951-2011; held as pdf-2891), PDF p. 12
    The District Census Handbook (DCHB) is an important publication of the Census Organization since 1951. ... In the 1961 Census, DCHB provided a descriptive account of the District, administrative statistics, Census tables and Village and Town Directory including Primary Census Abstract. This pattern was changed in 1971 Census and the DCHB was published in three parts: Part-A related to Village and Town Directory, Part-B to Village and Town PCA and Part-C comprised analytical report, administrative statistics, District Census tables and certain analytical tables based on PCA and amenity data in respect of Villages. The 1981 Census DCHB was published in two parts: Part-A contained Village and Town Directory and Part-B the PCA of Village and Town including the SCs and STs PCA up to Tahsil/Town levels.
  2. Census 1951, Hyderabad State, District Census Handbook Medak, Part II (introduction describes both parts), PDF p. 7
    Part I deals with available factual material relating to the resources of the district, the extent of utilisation of these resources and with Socio-Economic data of general interest. Part II comprises the more important of the 1951 Census tables along with statistics for each primary census unit.
  3. Shivakumar Jolad, Madhav Singh, Mehr Kalra. India State and District Evolution Database, 1872-2025, version 1.1 (2026). India State Stories, Harvard Dataverse. doi.org/10.7910/DVN/D1AGUR. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Map attribution

The 1951–2001 maps use India State Stories' census-year state and district boundaries (indiastatestory.in), digitised from the Census 2011 Administrative Atlas of India and obtained as GeoJSONL from ramSeraph/indian_admin_boundaries. We have made our own corrections and improvements to the boundaries.

Bulk downloads

To download PDFs in bulk, such as every handbook for a census year, email us at info@devdatalab.org and we will gladly help. If your work is adjacent to ours, we would also love to hear from you.