This file defines minimum and maximum statistics per race.
The first row (titles of columns ) is filled by the names of defined characteristics of PC (like MIN_STR = minimum strength).
The first column is filled by race names.
The crossings of the certain identifiers indicate what are intervals for statistics of PC with chosen race - used for character creation.
In BG2 ToB we have:

2DA V1.0
0
            MIN_STR MAX_STR MIN_DEX MAX_DEX MIN_CON MAX_CON MIN_INT MAX_INT MIN_WIS MAX_WIS MIN_CHR MAX_CHR
HUMAN       3       18      3       18      3       18      3       18      3       18      3       18
DWARF       8       18      3       17      11      18      3       18      3       18      3       17
ELF         3       18      6       18      7       18      8       18      3       18      8       18
GNOME       6       18      3       18      8       18      6       18      3       18      3       18
HALF_ELF    3       18      6       18      6       18      4       18      3       18      3       18
HALFLING    7       18      7       18      10      18      6       18      3       17      3       18
HALFORC     3       18      3       18      3       18      3       18      3       18      3       18