The
Punjabi population in India is 2.91 crore (29.1 million), which is 2.83% of the total population of India. This is the number of people who have registered Punjabi language as their mother tongue during the census of India held in 2001. Note that the last census was held in 2011 but the data on language is not yet released by the government. So the details given on this page are according to the data on language of 2001 census.
According to these figures, Punjabi language is at 11th rank in India in terms of total number of speakers. The Punjabi language is mainly spoken in Punjab state in northwest India, where more than 91% of the population have Punjabi as their native language. In terms of total number of speakers of this language, 77% among those live in Punjab.
Do you know which language is spoken by most number of people in India? The correct asswer is Hindi, which is native language of 42.2 crore Indians or 41.03% of the total population of India.
The state wise population of Punjabi speaking people and there percentage in the population of that state is given in the below table. In the below table, only those states and union territories are listed, where total Punjabi population is above 1 lakh.
| State/UT | Punjabi Population | % of State |
| Punjab | 2,23,34,369 | 91.7% |
| Haryana | 22,34,626 | 10.6 |
| Rajasthan | 11,41,200 | 2.02 |
| Delhi (UT) | 9,88,980 | 7.15 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 5,23,094 | 0.31 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 3,64,175 | 6.01 |
| Maharashtra | 2,69,309 | 0.28 |
| Uttarakhand | 2,47,084 | 2.91 |
| Chandigarh (UT) | 2,51,224 | 27.92 |
| Jammu & Kashmir | 1,90,675 | 1.90 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 1,48,999 | 0.25 |
| INDIA | 2,91,02,477 | 2.83 |