Can a township be a interval variable?

Answer 1

Yes and no! To be an interval variable, the difference of values must be of value. Townships are a number generally assigned to 36 square mile areas. With no more information as to how the townships are laid out, just subracting the two numbers gives me no information of how far apart are the townships. Can townships be a statistic, requiring classification? They don't really vary so they are really parameters not statistics. However, if township numbers can be transformed into a real location on a Cartesian coordinate system, then it could be considered part of data collection, hence open to classification as nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio. Let me give an example. If I want to collect data on the number of people becoming sick in different townships, I can use this information to calculate, in a very approximate manner distances if I know the layout of the townships and can relate it to a real coordinate system like UTM or other longitude/ latitude based systems. The distances between disease incidences (using the center of the township as an average location) could be considered a random variable. Calculated distances based on township centers would be a ratio variable.