extra things on the ends of variable declaration

i've been getting alot of source code for mp3 headers recently and have noticed that in alot of the variable declarations they have additions that ive never seen before..

VB Code:

Dim whatever as String * 1

im talking about the "* 1" and i was wondering what this is for and what it does? (dont be callin me a noob :p)

sorry if its come up before, but i didnt know what to search for and its not in all of the variable information from the msdn library
-cheers

it makes whatever 1 character big.