Explore Prosperity Index by Geography
Move across geographic levels without changing the underlying prosperity, population and per-capita-income comparison framework.
Move across geographic levels without changing the underlying prosperity, population and per-capita-income comparison framework.
Compare 2025 population, per-capita income and structural affluence across towns throughout India.
Move beyond state and district averages to identify stronger urban markets, rising consumer centres and underpenetrated expansion opportunities.
How are the 2025 population and per-capita-income estimates calculated and checked?
Methodology & ValidationCompare towns on a common national framework.
See where population, prosperity and purchasing power are concentrated beyond the largest metros.
Population + per-capita-income estimates.
Work with annually updated town-level market size and income estimates rather than relying only on 2011 Census conditions.
Prioritise locations and networks.
Compare outlets, branches, dealers or sales against local market potential to identify gaps and new urban opportunities.
A broad pan-India perspective helps direct effort and resources toward high-potential urban destinations. A town-level view makes it possible to identify where population, prosperity and purchasing power are concentrated beyond the largest metropolitan markets.
Which towns are the most prosperous? Which towns are growing into important consumer and business centres? Where are the strongest prospective markets? These are basic questions for marketers, retailers, banks, distributors and service networks. Strategist provides this view at town level so that analysis can move beyond state, district or tehsil averages.
Customer, outlet, dealer, branch and sales databases can be linked to towns to reveal the spatial pattern of current business. Sales and revenues can then be compared with town-level population, prosperity and per-capita-income estimates to identify underpenetrated markets, expansion opportunities and gaps in network coverage.
Town locations are corrected using high-resolution satellite imagery so that they correspond closely to actual populated areas. This provides a consistent pan-India geographic framework for urban market analysis, territory planning, distribution design and location strategy.
India missed its regular census in 2021, making the latest available census data more than a decade old (from 2011). Even the standard ten-year gap between censuses is too long given how rapidly the country is changing. To bridge this gap, we have developed predictive models using historical census data, yearly built-up area trends since 1991, and school enrollment figures from 2012 onward. This allows us to accurately estimate annual populations for states, districts, towns, villages, wards, and pincodes.
We have also created a model to predict per capita income by using district-level GDP data from 2012 onward, local bank credit growth trends since 2005, and monthly nightlight indices since 2012 derived from VIIRS nightlight imagery. These advanced models enable precise annual estimates of GDP and per capita income at multiple geographic levels, including states, districts, towns, villages, wards and pincodes.
Our models provide detailed annual estimates of population and per capita income from 2012 onward. Estimates for 2025 are now ready, with updates provided each year. Subscribe today for continuous access to the latest insights.
Strategist’s Prosperity Index is derived from household ownership of assets and average penetration level of these assets. Using household asset penetration numbers at city, village and ward-level provided by census bureau, combined with landuse maps and city / village / ward / pincode boundaries these asset ownership numbers are correlated to cities, towns and villages.
Our models generate annual population and per capita income estimates starting from 2012. The population model incorporates census data, built-up area trends since 1991, and recent school enrollment data. The GDP model combines district GDP data, local bank credit growth, and nightlight indices from satellite imagery to deliver accurate and timely insights.
Prosperity Index uses penetration of following assets in households:
Weightage for each asset is (100/national level household penetration of asset) i.e. if asset penetration is 20% then weightage for it is 5 while if asset penetration is 100% then weightage for it is 1.
Prosperity_index is the sum of all above 10 assets multiplied by their weightage factor.
Towns have been segregated into ten classes using a clustering algorithm. Table below shows asset penetration rates increasing consistently as prosperity increases. This can be used for Pareto 80-20 marketing i.e. targeting 80% market by only covering 20% areas. One can also decide market segments for effective targeting e.g. for microfinance, ideal target is people just above sustenance but not effectively covered by banking.
| Prosperity Class | No of Towns | % Households | Prosperity Range | % Car Ownership | % Car Market | % Bike Ownership | % Bike Market | % TV Ownership | % TV Market | % Comp. Ownership | % Comp. Market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 713 | 2.06 | 0 - 616 | 1.37 | 0.29 | 8.28 | 0.49 | 27.81 | 0.75 | 4.92 | 0.55 |
| 2 | 1251 | 5.29 | 617 - 863 | 2.27 | 1.23 | 15.26 | 2.30 | 50.07 | 3.46 | 6.18 | 1.78 |
| 3 | 1327 | 8.44 | 864 - 1055 | 2.83 | 2.45 | 20.13 | 4.84 | 62.91 | 6.93 | 7.52 | 3.45 |
| 4 | 1145 | 8.39 | 1056 - 1232 | 3.85 | 3.31 | 25.54 | 6.10 | 69.44 | 7.60 | 9.28 | 4.23 |
| 5 | 942 | 8.34 | 1233 - 1417 | 4.99 | 4.27 | 30.24 | 7.18 | 73.93 | 8.04 | 11.19 | 5.08 |
| 6 | 922 | 13.20 | 1418 - 1662 | 6.14 | 8.31 | 33.73 | 12.68 | 77.67 | 13.39 | 14.04 | 10.09 |
| 7 | 736 | 17.77 | 1663 - 2027 | 8.70 | 15.86 | 37.91 | 19.18 | 80.24 | 18.61 | 17.85 | 17.26 |
| 8 | 537 | 20.82 | 2029 - 2613 | 12.88 | 27.51 | 42.08 | 24.95 | 84.90 | 23.08 | 24.46 | 27.72 |
| 9 | 242 | 14.99 | 2624 - 3852 | 22.04 | 33.89 | 49.63 | 21.18 | 88.56 | 17.33 | 34.28 | 27.95 |
| 10 | 55 | 0.71 | 3870 - 8477 | 39.60 | 2.88 | 55.20 | 1.11 | 87.93 | 0.81 | 48.98 | 1.89 |
Based on the above methodology we have calculated prosperity index for towns of entire India. Chart below shows townwise pan-India prosperity variation for towns above 5000 population for selected states.
Select a state:
Select year:
The map above lets you switch between states and compare towns directly on this page. For a dedicated state view with a focused town-level map, open any of the state pages below.
