How are 3D arrays stored in C?

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At a low level, there is no such thing as a multi-dimensional array. There is just a flat block of memory, large enough to hold a given number of elements. In C, a multi-dimensional array is conceptually an array whose elements are also arrays. So if you do:

int array[2][3];

Conceptually you end up with:

array[0] => [0, 1, 2]
array[1] => [0, 1, 2]

This results in the elements being arranged contiguously in memory, because array[0] and array[1] are not actually holding any data, they are just references to the two inner arrays. Note that this means that only the [0, 1, 2] entries actually occupy space in memory. If you extend this pattern out to the next dimension, you can see that:

int array[2][3][2];

…will give you a structure like:

array[0] => [0] => [0, 1]
            [1] => [0, 1]
            [2] => [0, 1]
array[1] => [0] => [0, 1]
            [1] => [0, 1]
            [2] => [0, 1]

Which continues arranging the elements consecutively in memory (as above, only the [0, 1] entries actually occupy space in memory, everything else is just part of a reference to one of these entries). As you can see, this pattern will continue no matter how many dimensions you have.

And just for fun:

int array[2][3][2][5];

Gives you:

array[0] => [0] => [0] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
                   [1] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
            [1] => [0] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
                   [1] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
            [2] => [0] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
                   [1] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
array[1] => [0] => [0] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
                   [1] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
            [1] => [0] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
                   [1] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
            [2] => [0] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
                   [1] => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

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