Where does urban Bihar live?

21.4% of Bihar’s urban residents in the 2011 count lived in Patna district.

Start with the count

Bihar’s 2011 urban population was 11,758,016. Of those residents, 2,514,590 were counted in the urban parts of Patna district. That is about one in five.

The distinction between a city and a district matters here. This is the total for urban places across Patna district, not a count for Patna Municipal Corporation alone.

Two percentages, two questions

Patna’s share of Bihar’s urban population asks where the state’s urban residents were counted. The urban share within Patna district asks a different question: what proportion of the district’s own residents were classified as urban?

Neither percentage should be substituted for the other. A populous district can have a large urban count while retaining a substantial rural population. The district factbooks keep both counts visible.

The other districts belong in the picture

The chart below compares the six largest district urban counts. It uses one source period and a common zero baseline. The population directory contains all 38 records, including the much smaller counts that a top-six chart leaves out.

These figures do not establish why people lived in these places. Employment, education, transport, administrative boundaries and the Census definition of urban each need their own evidence. A count alone cannot supply that explanation.

Check identities as well as totals

Our extracted district totals reconcile with Bihar’s published state totals. That is a useful check, but it was not enough: the DES feed had exchanged the population fields for East and West Champaran. A swap leaves the state sum unchanged.

We checked the district identities against official district records, corrected only the affected population fields and kept the original responses. The correction is part of the published provenance.

Keep the year attached

These counts describe 2011. They have not been increased by a growth assumption or relabelled as a 2026 population. The map beside them comes from a later geographic source; its area is not used to recalculate Census density.

Evidence & method

Sum the urban counts of all 38 districts. Divide Patna district’s urban count by that sum, then multiply by 100. For each district’s own urban share, divide its urban count by its total count. Rankings use unrounded counts.

Patna’s share of Bihar’s urban count: 25,14,590 ÷ 1,17,58,016 × 100 = 21.39%.

Bihar urban share within the state’s own population: 1,17,58,016 ÷ 10,40,99,452 × 100 = 11.29%.

Census of India 2011, as republished by Bihar DES. Population triplets for East and West Champaran are corrected as documented. Actual raw responses and cross-checks are retained.

• These are Census 2011 counts, not current estimates.
• Patna district includes more than Patna city. A district urban total is not a municipal population.
• Urban is the source’s Census classification; it does not measure commuting, built-up land or access to services.
• Bihar DES transposes East/West Champaran population triplets. The disclosed correction preserves original responses and independent district cross-checks.

Complete methodology · Download the underlying records ↓ · Source register