Mean, median and mode are the three most commonly used averages. Mean itself can be of various types, such as arithmetic, geometric, harmonic and others. Median

Mean, median and mode are the three most commonly used averages. Mean itself can be of various types, such as arithmetic, geometric, harmonic and others. Median is a pretty good average because it excludes the extremes. Its 'superiority' compared to the arithmetic mean is can be easily explained by a hypothetical situation where you have 100 people and 99 of them are making $1000 a month while only one making $100000. The arithmetic average salary of this whole group is $1990 a month which is clearly not what most people would intuitively consider as the 'proper' average.