  We present the Second Palermo Swift-BAT hard X-ray catalogue obtained by
analysing data acquired in the first 54 months of the Swift mission. Using our
software dedicated to the analysis of data from coded mask telescopes, we
analysed the BAT survey data in three energy bands (15-30 keV, 15-70 keV,
15-150 keV), obtaining a list of 1256 detections above a significance threshold
of 4.8 standard deviations. The identification of the source counterparts is
pursued using two strategies: the analysis of field observations of soft X-ray
instruments and cross-correlation of our catalogue with source databases.The
survey covers 50% of the sky to a 15--150 keV flux limit of 1.0 x 10^-11 erg
s^-1 cm^-2 and 9.2 x 10^-12 erg s^-1 cm^-2 for |b|< 10 degrees and |b|> 10
degrees, respectively. The Second Palermo Swift-BAT hard X-ray catalogue
includes 1079 (86%) hard X-ray sources with an associated counterpart (26 with
a double association and 2 with a triple association) and 177 BAT excesses
(14%) that still lack a counterpart. The distribution of the BAT sources among
the different object classes consists of 19% Galactic sources, 57%
extragalactic sources, and 10% sources with a counterpart at softer energies
whose nature has not yet been determined. About half of the BAT associated
sources lack a counterpart in the ROSAT catalogues. This suggests that either
moderate or strong absorption may be preventing their detection in the ROSAT
energy band. The comparison of our BAT catalogue with the Fermi Large Area
Telescope First Source Catalogue identifies 59 BAT/Fermi correspondences: 48
blazars, 3 Seyfert galaxies, 1 interacting galaxy, 3 high mass X-ray binaries,
and 4 pulsars/supernova remnants. This small number of correspondences
indicates that different populations make the sky shine in these two different
energy bands.
