You can populate a 2d array from a text file by using a combination of a bufferedreader and a nested for loop. Something like this will do the trick:
BufferedReader bf = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (new File ("populationByProvinces.txt")));
provinceList = new ArrayList ();
year = new double [13] [5];
String line = "";
for (int x = 0 ; x <= 12 ; x++)
{
line = bf.readLine ();
provinceList.add (line);
for (int y = 0 ; y <= 4 ; y++)
{
year [x] [y] = Double.parseDouble ((line.substring ((y * 10 + 30), (y * 10 + 38))));
}
}
bf.close ();