The definition of a town is as follows:
(a) All places which have been notified under law and have local bodies like municipal corporations, municipalities, municipal committees, municipal boards, municipal town committees, cantonment boards, notified areas, notified area committees, town committees, town areas, town boards, town municipalities, sanitary boards, nagar panchayats, etc., irrespective of their demographic characteristics.
(b) All other places which satisfied the following criteria:
(i) A minimum population of 5,000 (All villages having a population of 4000 or more at the Census 2001 were identified).
(ii) At least 75 per cent of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits (while applying this criterion, the workers engaged in the agricultural activities, namely (a) Cultivators, (b) Agricultural Labourers and (c) Plantation, Livestock, Forestry, Fishing, Hunting and allied activities were excluded for computing the percentage of workers engaged in non-agricultural pursuits).
(iii) A density of population of at least 400 per sq. km. (villages that satisfied the above two criteria and had a density of 400 persons per sq. km. were classified as Census Towns).
The units that fall under category (a) above are designated as “Statutory Towns” and those in category (b) are designated as “Census Towns”. In Census 2011, a total of 7,933 towns were identified. The corresponding number in Census 2001 was 5,161. Out of these, as many as 4,041 were designated as Statutory Towns and 3,892 were designated as Census Towns. The corresponding numbers in Census 2001 was 3,799 and 1,362 respectively.