**Arrays** are a collection of similar items. In Python, most people use lists instead of arrays.  A user can treat lists as arrays but cannot constrain the data type of values stored in a list. Only the *same*  type of data can be stored in arrays. A pictorial representation of arrays is shown below: 

* The [length](https://www.educative.io/answers/how-to-find-the-length-of-a-string-in-python)  of this array is 5.
* The data type of values stored in this array is `integer`.

# Defining arrays in Python
To create arrays in Python, we need to import the `array` module to create arrays. An example of this shown below:

import array as arr # importing the array module
a = arr.array('i',[1,3,5,2,4]) #defining an array of integers with 5 values 

> `'i'` is the [type](https://www.educative.io/answers/what-are-type-codes-in-python) for the data type of values in the array. In this case, the array type is of `int`.

# Accessing array values
Arrays values are accessed using the array indexes: 



>* index of arrays in Python start from 0.

## For Example: 
Suppose we want to access the value at the 3rd index of the array. The illustration and code snippet below shows how this is done. 

import array as arr
a = arr.array('i',[1,3,5,2,4]) # defining an array of integers with 5 values 
print("Value at index 3 is: ")
print(a[3])

What are arrays in Python?

Arrays are a collection of similar items. In Python, most people use lists instead of arrays.  A user can treat lists as arrays but cannot constrain the data type of values stored in a list. Only the same  type of data can be stored in arrays. A pictorial representation of arrays is shown below: 