When you are using a listview in your applications many a times you will write your own adapter to display item. But if your list is very simple showing a list of strings, you can use inbuilt adapters like ArrayAdapter, SimpleCursorAdapter etc. ArrayAdapter Let us look at an example <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" > <ListView android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="@+id/listView1" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_margin="20dp"> </ListView> </LinearLayout> And add these lines to the onCreate method of the activity. super.onCreate(savedInstanc