| 4. Brazoria, TX | 117 | 4. Springfield, IL | 70 |
| 5. Lawton, OK | 116 | 5. Jacksonville, TN | 70 |
| 6. State College, PA | 113 | 6. Gadsden, AL | 70 |
| 7. Clarksville-Hopkinsville, TN-KY | 113 | 7. Wheeling, WV | 70 |
| 8. Anchorage, Alaska | 112 | 8. Charleston, WV | 71 |
| 9. Salinas-Seaside-Monterey, CA | 112 | 9. St. Joseph, MO | 71 |
| 10. Bryan-College Station, TX | 111 | 10. Lynchburg, VA | 71 |
NOTE: Unmarried includes never-married, widowed, and divorced persons, 15 years or older.
These descriptive statistics may make us ponder why the numbers are so disparate in these cities. One potential explanation, for instance, as to why there are more women in Florida than men may involve the fact that elderly individuals tend to move down to the Sarasota region and that women tend to outlive men. Thus, more women might live in Sarasota than men. However, in the absence of proper data, this is only speculation.
You probably know that descriptive statistics are central to the world of sports. Every sporting event produces numerous statistics such as the shooting percentage of players on a basketball team. For the Olympic marathon (a foot race of 26.2 miles), we possess data that cover more than a century of competition. (The first modern Olympics took place in 1896.) The following table shows the winning times for both men and women (the latter have only been allowed to compete since 1984).
Table 3. Winning Olympic marathon times.
| Women | |||
| Year | Winner | Country | Time |
| 1984 | Joan Benoit | USA | 2:24:52 |
| 1988 | Rosa Mota | POR | 2:25:40 |
