A multidimensional array is an array whose elements are themselves arrays. In C, a two-dimensional array is commonly used to represent data arranged in rows and columns, such as a matrix or a table.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    int matrix[2][3] = {
        {10, 20, 30},
        {40, 50, 60}
    };

    for (int row = 0; row < 2; row++)
    {
        for (int col = 0; col < 3; col++)
        {
            printf("%d ", matrix[row][col]);
        }

        printf("\n");
    }

    return 0;
}

Example Output #

10 20 30
40 50 60

Explanation #

The declaration:

int matrix[2][3];

creates a two-dimensional array containing two rows and three columns, for a total of six integer elements.

The first index selects a row, and the second index selects a column:

matrix[0][1] = 20;
matrix[1][2] = 60;

C stores the elements of a multidimensional array in row-major order. All elements of the first row are stored before the elements of the second row.

Multidimensional Array Declarations #

For a three-dimensional array:

int values[2][3][4];

three indices are required to access an individual element:

values[1][2][3] = 100;

Each additional dimension introduces another level of indexing. Multidimensional arrays are useful for matrices, grids, tabular data, and other fixed-size structures.