Cross tabulation is the process of creating a contingency table

Contingency table

In statistics, a contingency table is a type of table in a matrix format that displays the frequency distribution of the variables...

 from the multivariate frequency distribution

Frequency distribution

In statistics, a frequency distribution is an arrangement of the values that one or more variables take in a sample. Each entry in the table contains the frequency or count of the occurrences of values within a particular group or interval, and in this way, the table summarizes the distribution of...

 of statistical

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 variables. Heavily used in survey research, cross tabulations (or crosstabs for short) can be produced by a range of statistical packages, including some that are specialised for the task. Survey weights often need to be incorporated. Unweighted tables can be easily produced by some spreadsheet

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...

s and other business intelligence tools

Business intelligence tools

Business intelligence tools are a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze and report data. The tools generally read data that have been previously stored, often, though not necessarily, in a data warehouse or data mart....

, where they are commonly known as pivot table

Pivot table

In data processing, a pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets or business intelligence software. Among other functions, pivot-table tools can automatically sort, count, total or give the average of the data stored in one table or spreadsheet...

s.

Definition and example

Definition:
A matrix display of the categories of two nominal scaled variables, containing frequency counts of number of subjects in each bivariate category is called a contingency table

Contingency table

In statistics, a contingency table is a type of table in a matrix format that displays the frequency distribution of the variables...

.
The following table lists the gender and the handedness

Handedness

Handedness is a human attribute defined by unequal distribution of fine motor skills between the left and right hands. An individual who is more dexterous with the right hand is called right-handed and one who is more skilled with the left is said to be left-handed...

for a sample population of 12 individuals:

Sample #	Gender	Handedness
1	Female	Right-handed
2	Male	Left-handed
3	Male	Right-handed
4	Female	Right-handed
5	Female	Right-handed
6	Male	Right-handed
7	Male	Left-handed
8	Male	Right-handed
9	Female	Right-handed
10	Female	Left-handed
11	Male	Right-handed
12	Female	Right-handed

Cross-tabulation leads to the following contingency table:

	Left-handed	Right-handed	Total
Males	2	4	6
Females	1	5	6
Total	3	9	12