Large‐scale distribution of interstellar matter in the central region of our Galaxy

In this paper, we review the present observational knowledge on the physical properties and the large-scale spatial distribution of interstellar matter in the central region of our Galaxy, out to a distance of 3 kpc from the Galactic center. We mainly focus on the interstellar gas, which contains ∼98 % of the total interstellar mass, leaving the remaining ∼2 % to interstellar dust. In a second step, we present a global model of the interstellar gas distribution, which incorporates the relevant results of a vast number of observational studies as well as those of numerical simulations of gas flows in the gravitational potential of a barred galaxy. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)