Why are rook endgames so common in chess?

Question

There are many types of endgames, king and pawn endgames, queens and kings endgames and many more. However, I notice that in most of my games the endgame is rook endgame, wherein both sides have one rook, king and some pawns. This is also very common in top-level games. So, why does it frequently occur in endgames?

Answer 1

Because they are developed last and thus are usually the last pieces on the board..

Answer 2

rooks cover whole lanes and ranks and thus are involved in easier endgames, especially on a very empty board.

Answer 3

The rook can take awhile to put in play and so it usually it not sacrificed/captured early in the game, plus some players like to castle and then leave the rook back to help protect the king.

Answer 4

the pieces(knights and bishops) are always put into play first therefore leading them to being captured first. then the queen is use prominentely as an attacking piece so the top level games like to stop attacks, thus trading queens. then there is only the rook left which is the hardest to get into play because they cannot move diagonally

Answer 5

I don't have a lot of experience playing chess, but it might be related to the fact that the rooks easily cover the whole board, are powerful pieces, and are the pieces you hate to lose, and so are the most likely pieces to still be in play at the end of the game.