five-number summary

In descriptive statistics, the five-number summary of a data set consists of:

1. the minimum (smallest observation)
2. the lower quartile or first quartile (which cuts off the lowest 25% of the data)
3. the median (middle value)
4. the upper quartile or third quartile (which cuts off the highest 25% of the data)
5. the maximum (largest observation)

The five-number summary is sometimes represented as in the following table:

The five-number summary can be represented graphically using a boxplot.

See also

• Quartile
• Order statistic

References

• David C. Hoaglin, Frederick Mosteller and John W. Tukey. "Understanding robust and exploratory data analysis". Wiley, 1983. ISBN 0-471-09777-2.

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