Large scale structure

I give a review of catalogues of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters - sources of information to study the large-scale structure of the Universe. Thereafter I shall discuss the power spectrum of density perturbations, and the correlation function - principal description functions which characterize the large-scale structure. I shall pay special attention to the geometric interpretation of these functions, i.e. to the way in which the various properties of the distribution of galaxies in systems and systems themselves are reflected in these functions. Finally. I discuss cosmological parameters which characterize general properties of the Universe - the Hubble constant, densities of various populations of the Universe, and parameters of the power spectrum of galaxies and matter. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.