# Categorical data

that has no inherent numeric meaning.![](/files/-LsbZeo1KDdGwu9XNMX_)

So, for example, I can say that the area of Texas is greater than the area of Florida, but I can't just say Texas is greater than Florida, they're just categories. There's no real numerical quantifiable meaning to them, it's just ways that we categorize different things.

Now again, **I might have some sort of numerical assignation to each state. I mean, I could say that Florida is state number 3 and Texas state number 4, but there's no real relationship between 3 and 4 there**, right, it's just a shorthand to more compactly represent these categories. So again, categorical data does not have any intrinsic numerical meaning; it's just a way that you're choosing to split up a set of data based on categories.


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