  If the origin of life and the evolution of observers on a planet is favoured
by atypical properties of a planet's host star, we would expect our Sun to be
atypical with respect to such properties. The Sun has been described by
previous studies as both typical and atypical. In an effort to reduce this
ambiguity and quantify how typical the Sun is, we identify eleven
maximally-independent properties that have plausible correlations with
habitability, and that have been observed by, or can be derived from,
sufficiently large, currently available and representative stellar surveys. By
comparing solar values for the eleven properties, to the resultant stellar
distributions, we make the most comprehensive comparison of the Sun to other
stars. The two most atypical properties of the Sun are its mass and orbit. The
Sun is more massive than 95 -/+ 2% of nearby stars and its orbit around the
Galaxy is less eccentric than 93 +/- 1% of FGK stars within 40 parsecs. Despite
these apparently atypical properties, a chi^2 -analysis of the Sun's values for
eleven properties, taken together, yields a solar chi^2 = 8.39 +/- 0.96. If a
star is chosen at random, the probability that it will have a lower value (be
more typical) than the Sun, with respect to the eleven properties analysed
here, is only 29 +/- 11%. These values quantify, and are consistent with, the
idea that the Sun is a typical star. If we have sampled all reasonable
properties associated with habitability, our result suggests that there are no
special requirements for a star to host a planet with life.
