ATLASGAL is the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy, an ongoing observing programme with the LABOCA bolometer array at APEX, located at 5100 m altitude on Chajnantor, Chile. This survey aims at mapping 360 square degrees at 870 microns in the inner Galaxy, with a uniform sensitivity of a few solar masses at 1 kpc distance. This project is a collaboration between the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG: Max Planck Institute für Radioastronomie, MPIfR Bonn, and Max Planck Institute für Astronomie, MPIA Heidelberg), the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Universidad de Chile.