Cross-Section Data: A sample of entities observed at the same point in time.
Example:
A cross-section data set is a sample of entities observed at the same point in time. An example below has data on the unemployment rate and homeownership rate for the U.S. states in 2018. The first two columns contain identifying information: FIPS is two-digit number that the government uses to identify states. STATE is the name of the state. There are two columns of data, each column is a different variable. HOWN2018 is the homeownership rate in % in the year 2018 and UR2018 is the unemployment rate in % in the year 2018. There are 52 rows of information: row 1 contains variable names. Always use simple names with no spaces. The data begin in row 2. There are n=51 rows of data:50 states plus the District of Columbia.
You can download this .csv file by clicking on this link: state_cs
Notice that there are no empty rows, simple variable names without spaces, no units for number values (no % signs). When you construct your own data set, follow these practices.