Salem
Population
- Population
- 34.82 LIndia 121.09 Cr
- Urban %
- 50.95%India 31.14%
Literacy
- Literacy
- 72.86%India 72.98%
- Male Lit.
- 80.24%India 80.88%
- Female Lit.
- 65.15%India 64.63%
- Lit. Gap
- 15.09 ppIndia 16.25 pp
Society
- Sex Ratio
- 954 / 1000India 943 / 1000
- Child Sex Ratio
- 916 / 1000India 918 / 1000
- Under 7
- 9.91%India 13.59%
- SC %
- 16.67%India 16.63%
- ST %
- 3.43%India 8.63%
- Household
- 3.80India 4.85
Work
- Workers
- 48.65%India 39.80%
- Female Work
- 35.89%India 25.52%
- Main Workers
- 92.14%India 75.24%
- Non-Workers
- 51.35%India 60.20%
Population density, land area and decadal growth are not published in the Primary Census Abstract and so are unavailable at district level. See Methodology.
Salem in context
With 34,82,056 people at the 2011 Census, Salem was the 90th most populous of India's 640 districts and the 5th most populous of Tamil Nadu's 32. That is 4.8% of everyone living in Tamil Nadu at the time.
Literacy stood at 72.86%, level with the national 72.98% — 7.2 points below the Tamil Nadu average. That ranked it 300th of 640 districts nationally. The gap between male and female literacy was 15.1 points, 1.2 points below the national gap of 16.3.
The sex ratio was 954 women per 1,000 men (42 below the Tamil Nadu figure of 996).
48.6% of the population were recorded as workers, 3.1 points above the Tamil Nadu rate.
Salem contained 68 towns — 38 with a municipal body of some kind, and 30 classed as census towns, meaning they met the census's urban test without having one. The largest was Salem (M Corp.), with 8,29,267 people. That put 51.0% of the district in urban areas, 2.6 points above the Tamil Nadu share of 48.4%.
Towns in Salem
Salem has 68 census towns. The largest are listed below.
| Town | Population | Literacy | Sex ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salem (M Corp.) | 8.29 L | 84.42% | 987 / 1000 |
| Attur (M) | 61,793 | 82.89% | 1021 / 1000 |
| Edappadi (M) | 54,823 | 71.75% | 946 / 1000 |
| Mettur (M) | 52,813 | 83.61% | 1016 / 1000 |
| Edaganasalai (TP) | 33,245 | 68.07% | 888 / 1000 |
| Tharamangalam (TP) | 30,222 | 70.14% | 926 / 1000 |
| Sankari (TP) | 29,467 | 82.19% | 976 / 1000 |
| Mecheri (TP) | 25,676 | 72.71% | 903 / 1000 |