What is the importance and benefit of ranking statistical data?

Ranking is the sorting of data, in ascending or descending
order.

Common uses of ranking are as
follows:

Geopolitical: ranking of countries according to
population, resources, GNP, etc.

Sports:  Ranking of
players and teams

Olympic:  Ranking of athletes and
countries by number of gold, silver or bronze
medals

Search-engine:  Ranking by
relevance

Statistics:  Ranking to facilitate statistical
manipulation/interpretation of data

The ranking in each of
the above categories is done according to a universally agreed-upon
formula.

In Statistics, ranking is done by sorting ordinal
numbers or values in ascending or descending order.  The ordinal value of each number is
then replaced by its rank.  The rank number is used in the statistical calculation.  The
statistical methods that use ranking do not work for raw data that have not been ranked,
and use of unranked numbers would create error.

Example of
Statistical Ranking (descending order):

Ordinal
Numbers/Values:  2.35, 3.24, 1.79, 5.23, 5.21, 2.75

Rank
Number:                   5       3       6        1       2      
4

Please see the reference for examples of the many types
of ranking (not just for Statistics), and explanations of the various
methods.