Galactic Bulges

de Harm J. Habing

This book contains the proceedings of the first large IAU Symposium dedicated to the bulges of spiral galaxies. Detailed attention is paid to the bulge of our Milky Way system, one of the major building blocks of this system. Topics include the definition of the bulge in our Galaxy and its relation to the so-called spheroid. Discussions are presented to the stars contained in this bulge, their astrophysical properties and their motions. Metallicity variations appear to be present. The possible existence of a bar in the bulge and its origin and future are discussed. The same topics are discussed in (necessarily) less detail for the bulges of other galaxies. The book contains invited reviews given by N. Arimoto, F. Bertola, H. Dejonghe, T. de Zeeuw, M. Franx, I.S. Glass, H.J. Habing, I. King, J. Kormendy, G.W. Preston, R.M. Rich, G. Stansinska, D.M. Terndrup, and P. Whitelock; the Conference Summary is written by K.C. Freeman.