The Stellar Population of the Galactic Bulge
  The Galactic bulge is the central spheroid of our Galaxy, containing about
one quarter of the total stellar mass of the Milky Way (M_bulge=1.8x10^10
M_sun; Sofue, Honma & Omodaka 2009). Being older than the disk, it is the first
massive component of the Galaxy to have collapsed into stars. Understanding its
structure, and the properties of its stellar population, is therefore of great
relevance for galaxy formation models. I will review our current knowledge of
the bulge properties, with special emphasis on chemical abundances, recently
measured for several hundred stars.
