Associative arrays and Java

I've run into the same problem a lot of people seem to face coming from PHP, the lack of a decent and easy to use associative array solution. I've read quesions here which basically all suggested to use a HashMap, like this Q: Java associative-array However, I don't think the solutions mentioned will solve my problem. I'll explain. I have a list with 250 items (countries) for which I want to store data. The data is of undefined length, meaning it can hold multiple entries per "column", sometimes no entry, sometimes 4, etcetera. in PHP I could just do this: ``` $country_data = new array(); $country_data["nl"]["currency"] = "euro"; $country_data["nl"]["languages"] = "Dutch"; ... $country_data["us"]["currency"] = "US dollar"; $country_data["us"]["languages"] = array("English", "Spanish"); ``` So sometimes I want to store an array, sometimes not. Ofcourse it could also be a array with only one entry instead of a string, but I'm just saying. So, the question is, how do I store and fetch arrays in arrays in a HashMap? I understand I am pretty much stuck with the ugly HashMap solution, but I still can't see how this will let me store arrays, I'm sure I'm overlooking something simple. An example based on mine would be great! UPDATE I opted to go for HashMaps of HashMaps The reason for this I need to be able to oversee everything easily, and change a few lines of values when needed. And this is flexible, I can easily just get a country name based on country code, a language, or I can get the country_data HashMap when I need it, or all country names, etcetera. ``` public class iso_countries { Map<String, Object> country_data = new HashMap<String, Object>(); Map<String, String> country_name = new HashMap<String, String>(); Map<String, String[]> country_idd = new HashMap<String, String[]>(); Map<String, String[]> country_cid = new HashMap<String, String[]>(); public iso_countries(){ country_name.put("nl", "Netherlands"); country_idd.put("nl", new String[]{"+31"}); country_cid.put("nl", new String[]{"#31#", "*31#"}); setData(country_name, country_cid, country_idd); // 249 * 4 lines more and later... }//end method public void setData(Map country_name, Map country_cid, Map country_idd){ country_data.put("name", country_name); country_data.put("idd", country_idd); country_data.put("cid", country_cid); }//end method public String getCountryName(String countryCode){ String name = country_name.get(countryCode); return name; }//end method public String[] getCountryIdd(String countryCode){ String prefix[] = country_idd.get(countryCode); return prefix; }//end method public String[] getCountryCid(String countryCode){ String cid[] = country_cid.get(countryCode); return cid; }//end method }//end class ```