Population Growth
Census	Pop.	%±
1951	9,697,000	—
1961	11,606,000	19.7%
1971	14,227,000	22.6%
1981	17,612,000	23.8%
1991	21,844,000	24.0%
2001	26,945,829	23.4%
2011	32,988,134	22.4%
Est.	32,555,864	20.8%
Source:Census of India

Jharkhand (lit. "Bushland") is a state in eastern India carved out of the southern part of Bihar on 15 November 2000. The state shares its border with the states of Bihar to the north, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the west, Odisha to the south, and West Bengal to the east. It has an area of 79,710 km² (30,778 sq mi).

The industrial city of Ranchi is its capital and Dumka its sub capital. Dhanbad is the largest industrial city in the state, while Jamshedpur and Bokaro Steel City are the second and fourth most populous cities respectively.

Jharkhand accounts for 40% of the mineral resources of India but it suffers widespread poverty as 39.1 per cent of the population is below the poverty line and 19.6 per cent of the children under five years of age are malnourished. The State is primarily a rural state as only 24 percent of the population resides in cities.

According to writers including Gautam Kumar Bera, there was already a distinct geo-political, cultural entity called Jharkhand even before the Magadha Empire. Bera's book (page 33) also refers to the Hindu epic Bhavishya Purana. The tribal rulers, some of whom continue to thrive till today were known as the Munda Rajas, who basically had ownership rights to large farmlands. For a greater part of Vedic age, Jharkhand remained unnoticed. During the age of Mahajanpadas around 500 BC, India saw the emergence of 16 large states that controlled the entire Indian subcontinent. In those days the northern portion of Jharkhand state was a tributary state of Magadha (ancient Bihar) Empire and southern part was a tributary of Kalinga (ancient Odisha) Empire.

According to legend, Raja Jai Singh Deo of Odisha declared himself the ruler of Jharkhand in the 13th century. The Singh Deo's of Orissa were influential in the early history of Jharkhand. The local tribal heads had developed into barbaric dictators who could govern the province neither fairly nor justly. Consequently, the people of this state approached the more powerful rulers of Jharkhand's neighboring states who were perceived to have a more fair and just governance. This became the turning point in the history of the region wherein rulers from Odisha moved in with their armies and created states that were governed for the benefit of the people and involved their participation, thus ending the barbarism that had marked the region for centuries. The good tribal rulers continued to thrive and were known as the Munda Rajas, and exist to this day. Later, during the Mughal period, the Jharkhand area was known as Kukara. In the year 1765, it came under the control of the British Empire and became formally known under its present title, "Jharkhand" — the Land of "jungles" (forests) and "jharis" (bushes).

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Wikipedia