Order for the rows of a table
In many tables, the rows are ordered alphabetically by their row names, but it is usually better to reorder them in another meaningful way.
Some data about Africa
The table below shows three columns of health information about some African countries (mostly data from 2003). Only countries with populations over 10 million have been included to keep the table to a manageable size.
The countries are initially sorted into alphabetic order. This helps to quickly find the values for any particular country, but rarely helps you to see what is associated with differences between the values in the columns.
Use the pop-up menu to reorder the countries from North to South. This ordering helps to show whether there are any geographical patterns.
Next try ordering the countries by their GDP per capita (with the wealthiest countries at the top). This might show whether the wealth of the countries are associated with the variables.
Finally, try ordering the countries based on the variables that are displayed in the table. For example, order by TB rates. Do the countries with high TB rates also have high HIV/AIDS rates? Fewer nurses?
There is no 'correct' way to order the rows of a large table and the 'best' order depends on the information that you want to highlight. However there are usually better ways than alphabetic order.