1. Systematic information about the attributes of the entities contained in some well-defined aggregate, such as the person records produced from a census or survey, or the birth or death records produced from a civil registration system. Data of this type may be referred to as "micro" or "unit record" or "individual level" data. Data in this sense is synonymous with data set. Though the information contained on records may be quantitative, the definition of the aggregate is necessarily textual, so that data always involves a qualitative element as well. 2. Numeric information derived from such data, such as a table of numbers of persons in various age-sex groups derived from population census data. Data of this kind may be referred to as "macro" or "aggregate" or "tabular" data. In the terminology of the field of statistics, a statistic. 3. Quantitative information in general, including estimates, indicators and statistics of all kinds.

Characteristics or information, usually numerical, that are collected through observation.