Household
A group of people who normally live together and eat from a common kitchen.
The census defines a household by the common kitchen rather than by family relationship, so unrelated people sharing meals count as one household and two related families cooking separately count as two. Institutional households such as hostels and prisons are recorded separately.
Where you will see this on the site
This term appears in the census tables reproduced across state, district, tehsil and village pages. How we source and handle those figures is set out on the about the data page.
Related terms
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Page last reviewed: August 2026. Back to the glossary