The DENIS database first release

DENIS is the first astronomical survey of the Southern sky in two near-infrared bands (J at 1.25{mu}m, and K_s_ at 2.15{mu}m) and one optical band (Gunn-i at 0.82{mu}m), conducted by a European consortium, using the 1m telescope at ESO, La Silla (Chile). The first data release, described here, consists of a preliminary set of about 17 million extracted point sources, corresponding to 102 strips (2% of the Southern sky), and resulting from observations performed in 1996.