Proportions
In frequency tables and other tables of partitions, the proportions of the total that occur in the categories often aid understanding of the data. These are simply the values divided by the table total.
In frequency tables, these values are called the relative frequencies of the categories.
Percentages
The proportions are often expressed as percentages — simply the proportions multiplied by 100. Although percentages and proportions contain identical information, the leading zeros are suppressed in the percentages, making it easier to compare them.
Percentages are usually easier to interpret than the raw frequencies, so frequency tables are often augmented with an extra column of percentages.
Tanzania drinking water
The frequency table below shows the main source of drinking water for all rural households in Tanzania in the dry season of 2002/3.
Choose the option Count & proportion under the frequency table to see the proportion of the households using water from each source.
Finally, choose the option Count & percentage to express the proportions as percentages. Although the percentages are simply 100 times the corresponding proportions, the leading zeros are suppressed and the information in the data stands out better.
World crude oil production in 2005
Since these values are a partition of the total world oil production, we can again add a column of proportions or percentages. Choose Barrels & percentage from the pop-up menu to see the percentage of production from each region.