Static Variables and Methods in Java

In place of global variables as in C/C++, Java allows variables in a class to be declared static:

 public class A 
 {
   static int k_var;
  }

A single memory location is assigned to this variable and it exists and is accessible even when no instances of class A are created.
These static variable is also called class variables, since they belong to the class as a whole.
If a class property is also declared final, then it becomes a global constant (i.e. can't be altered):

  public class A
 {
    final static int k_var;
 }

Similarly, methods can also be declared static, and are called class methods

  public class A {
   static void A_method(float x){ }
  }   

These class methods also can be called even when no instance of the class exists. The code in a class method can only refer to static variables and the argument variables.