DEMOGRAPHICS
The city has a population of 744,739 according to the 2001 census ( nearly 1.1 million on Nov 2006). Within the city, the density of population is about 5,284 people per square kilometer. The district has a literacy rate of 89.36%. With the sex ratio being 1,037 females to every 1,000 males, there are more women in Thiruvananthapuram than men. The wider urban agglomeration registered a population of about one million in 2001.
Hindus comprise of 65% of the population, Christians are about 18% and Muslims about 15%. The major language spoken is Malayalam. English and Hindi are also widely understood. There is also a prominent minority of Tamil speakers and a few Tulu and Konkani speakers.
Unemployment is a serious issue in Thiruvananthapuram, as it is in whole of Kerala. The increase in the unemployment rate was from 8.8% in 1998 to 34.3% in 2003, thus registering a 25.5% absolute and a 289.7% relative increase in five years. Thiruvananthapuram taluk ranked third in Kerala with 36.3% of its population unemployed. The in-migration of unemployed from other districts also boost this high unemployment rate.Thiruvananthapuram has a high suicide rate in the state, which went up from 17.2 per lakh in 1995 to 38.5 per lakh in 2002. In 2004, the rate came down slightly to 36.6 per lakh.
This apparent paradox—high human development and low economic development—is visible in the entire state of Kerala, and is often dubbed as the Kerala phenomenon or the Kerala model of development.