It was published by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.
The Atlas has used the 2011 Census data for Tamil Nadu for its analysis, and puts the population of the State at 7,21,47,030.
96.20% of the total population in the State could speak Tamil; 8.05%, Telugu; 2.59%, Kannada; and 1.40%, Malayalam – either as their mother tongue or as their first or second subsidiary language.
About 18.49% of the total population in Tamil Nadu could speak English.
The five major languages, classified on the basis of the total number of speakers in the State, are – Tamil (6,37,53,997), Telugu (42,34,302), Kannada (12,86,175), Urdu (12,64,537), Malayalam (7,26,096).
Besides, there are 8,81,923 speakers of other languages.
Over 24 lakh persons in the State could speak three languages.
Excluding the trilingual, over 1.79 crore people in the State could speak two languages.
Of the 17 Dravidian languages, speakers of 14 languages were found in Tamil Nadu, while those of Jatapu, Kolami and Koya were not present in the State.
There are 60 million Tamil speakers, mainly in south India, and 68 million Tamil speakers worldwide.
The first version of the country’s Language Atlas was published in 2004, using the 1991 Census data.