Metallicity, Structure and Kinematics of the Milky Way's Bulge

One of the unsolved problems of the Milky Way is the interplay between the different components (disk, bulge and halo) in the inner regions, where they may all reach their maximum density. As a first approach to attack this problem, we summarize the results of a photometric and spectroscopic study of the Galactic bulge based on ∼700 K and M giants in 3 fields (Minniti 1993a). Table 1 lists the position of the fields, their projected Galactocentric distance, number of stars with spectra at present, and estimated disk contamination.