Demographics

Ranganathan Street in T. Nagar usually throngs with shoppers.

Religions in Chennai
Religion			Percentage
Hindu			81.3%
Muslim			9.4%
Christian			7.6%
Jains			1.1%

A resident of Chennai is called a Chennaite. According to the provisional population results of 2011, Chennai city has a population of 4,681,087, with a density of 26,903, making it one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The city registered a growth rate of 7.8% during the period 1991-2001. The population of the metropolitan area is estimated to be more than 8.24 million. The estimated metropolitan population in 2006 is 4.5 million. With the area of the Chennai Corporation being extended to 456 km² the population with in the area administered by the corporation was 5.6 million in 2001 which makes it the third largest city in India. In 2001, the population density in the city was 24,682 per km² (63,926 per mi²), while the population density of the metropolitan area was 5,922 per km² (15,337 per mi²), making it one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The sex ratio is 951 females for every 1,000 males, slightly higher than the national average of 944. The average literacy rate is 80.1%, much higher than the national average of 64.5%. The city has the fourth highest population of slum dwellers among major cities in India, with about 820,000 people (18.6% of its population) living in slum conditions.This number represents about 5% of the total slum population of India. In 2005, the crime rate in the city was 313.3 per 100,000 people, accounting for 6.2% of all crimes reported in major cities in India. The number of crimes in the city showed a significant increase of 61.8% from 2004.

According to the 2001 census, Hindus constitute about 81.3% of the city's population, and Muslims (9.4%), Christians (7.6%) and Jains (1.1%) are other major religious groups.The majority of the population in Chennai are Tamils. Tamil is the primary language spoken in Chennai. English is widely spoken especially in business, education andwhite collar professions. Telugus form the majority of the population among the non-Tamil community. Chennai also has a large migrant population, who come from other parts of Tamil Nadu and from the rest of the country apart from few Marwaris, Oriyans, Malayalis, Anglo-Indians, Bengalis and Punjabi. Chennai also has a smallexpatriate population who work in IT firms. As of 2001, out of the 937,000 migrants (21.6% of its population) in the city, 74.5% were from other parts of the state, 23.8% were from rest of India and 1.7% were from outside the country.