The 2MASS Redshift Survey - Description and Data Release
  We present the results of the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS), a ten-year
project to map the full three-dimensional distribution of galaxies in the
nearby Universe. The 2 Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) was completed in 2003 and
its final data products, including an extended source catalog (XSC), are
available on-line. The 2MASS XSC contains nearly a million galaxies with Ks <=
13.5 mag and is essentially complete and mostly unaffected by interstellar
extinction and stellar confusion down to a galactic latitude of |b|=5 deg for
bright galaxies. Near-infrared wavelengths are sensitive to the old stellar
populations that dominate galaxy masses, making 2MASS an excellent starting
point to study the distribution of matter in the nearby Universe.
  We selected a sample of 44,599 2MASS galaxies with Ks <= 11.75 mag and |b|>=5
deg (>= 8 deg towards the Galactic bulge) as the input catalog for our survey.
We obtained spectroscopic observations for 11,000 galaxies and used
previously-obtained velocities for the remainder of the sample to generate a
redshift catalog that is 97.6% complete to well-defined limits and covers 91%
of the sky. This provides an unprecedented census of galaxy (baryonic mass)
concentrations within 300 Mpc.
  Earlier versions of our survey have been used in a number of publications
that have studied the bulk motion of the Local Group, mapped the density and
peculiar velocity fields out to 50 Mpc, detected galaxy groups, and estimated
the values of several cosmological parameters.
  Additionally, we present morphological types for a nearly-complete sub-sample
of 20,860 galaxies with Ks < 11.25 mag and |b|>= 10 deg.
