Whether it’s crime, house prices or something else the news is awash with lists focusing on the best and the worst places in the country. If you live in a place that tends to be more ordinary the chances are that you’ll rarely read about your home in the headlines.

The M.E.N. has decided to redress this imbalance by analysing a range of stats to find the most AVERAGE place in the land.

Our rankings were calculated by looking at eight key measures: the ratio of men to women, the proportion of people with a degree, the proportion of people living on their own, average age, the proportion of people who were economically inactive, the proportion of people who were married, average earnings and house prices.

In each case every local authority was ranked on how close they were to the median figure and these medians were subsequently totaled and ranked to arrive at the final placings.

Stockport emerged as the 18th most average place in the country and was within nine per cent of the average in seven of the eight measures used.

Bury was the second most average place in Greater Manchester, ranking 56th nationally, while Manchester was the least average place in the area, ranking 288th nationally.

Mendip emerged as the most ordinary place in England and Wales after comparing all 346 local authority areas on eight key metrics. In seven of these eight measures Mendip was within seven per cent of the average.

The second most ordinary place in the country is Shropshire, followed by the County of Herefordshire and then Cheshire East in fourth.

At the other end of the scale Kensington and Chelsea was found to be the least average place in the country followed by Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham.

Special mentions must also go to Ipswich, Wakefield and Rutland in the East Midlands, all of whom were found to be ranked bang in the middle of our averageness rankings. In other words these were the areas who were the most average when it came to being average.

Time Line

How average are Greater Manchester's boroughs? (out of 346 in England and Wales)

  1. 18th

    Stockport

  2. 56th

    Bury

  3. 122nd

    Wigan

  4. 143rd

    Bolton

  5. 204th

    Trafford

  6. 210th

    Oldham

  7. 220nd

    Salford

  8. 222nd

    Tameside

  9. 229th

    Rochdale

  10. 288th

    Manchester