This example show you how to convert a java.util.Map into JSON string and back to Map again.

package org.kodejava.gson;

import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.reflect.TypeToken;

import java.lang.reflect.Type;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class MapToJson {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map<String, String> colours = new HashMap<>();
        colours.put("BLACK", "#000000");
        colours.put("RED", "#FF0000");
        colours.put("GREEN", "#008000");
        colours.put("BLUE", "#0000FF");
        colours.put("YELLOW", "#FFFF00");
        colours.put("WHITE", "#FFFFFF");

        // Convert a Map into JSON string.
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        String json = gson.toJson(colours);
        System.out.println("json = " + json);

        // Convert JSON string back to Map.
        Type type = new TypeToken<Map<String, String>>() {
        }.getType();
        Map<String, String> map = gson.fromJson(json, type);
        for (String key : map.keySet()) {
            System.out.println("map.get = " + map.get(key));
        }
    }
}

Here is the result of the program:

json = {"RED":"#FF0000","WHITE":"#FFFFFF","BLUE":"#0000FF","BLACK":"#000000","YELLOW":"#FFFF00","GREEN":"#008000"}
map.get = #FF0000
map.get = #FFFFFF
map.get = #0000FF
map.get = #000000
map.get = #FFFF00
map.get = #008000

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
    <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
    <version>2.11.0</version>
</dependency>