Nominal data | Statistics

Nominal data is the most primitive type of data. Nominal data can only be classified and summarized on the number of observations.

It is not possible to rank the nominal data, there is no way to put one category over another category. Examples of nominal data can be color or gender. Nominal data are divided into categories that are mutually exclusive and exhaustive.

With mutually exclusive means that an individual, an object or a measurement can not be in more than one category. With exhaustive means that each observation must be in a category, the category 'other' can be added so that all observations can be classified into one category.