Density of Population of the Indian Empire. Plate 8

The thematic plate

Plate 8 was prepared at the Edinburgh Geographical Institute under John George Bartholomew. A colour key classifies density while the base map retains administrative divisions and major settlements.

Colour as quantity

The map is a choropleth: colour represents the intensity of a measured variable rather than political possession or physical relief. Millions of people are abstracted into zones that can be compared at a glance.

Statistics and government

The sheet belongs to a wider nineteenth-century culture of census, tabulation and comparative administration. The exact statistical source should be stated only where the atlas or its documentation identifies it; the map itself demonstrates how population data was made spatial.

The gaze

The administrative gaze becomes analytic. India is not merely divided into provinces but measured as population distribution—a society transformed into graded bands of colour for comparison and management.