  We present the first study of bars in the local Universe, based on the Sloan
Digitized Sky Survey (SDSS). The large sample of ~5000 local galaxies provides
the largest study to date of local bars and minimizes the effect of cosmic
variance. The sample galaxies have M_g<=-18.5 mag and cover the redshift range
0.01<=z<0.04. We use a color cut in the color-magnitude diagram and the Sersic
index n to identify disk galaxies. We characterize bars and disks using r-band
images and the method of iterative ellipse fits and quantitative criteria
developed in Jogee at al. (2004, ApJL, 615, L105). After excluding highly
inclined (i>60 degrees) systems our results are: (1) the optical (r-band)
fraction of barred galaxies among local disk galaxies is 43%, which confirms
the ubiquity of local bars, in agreement with other optical studies based on
smaller samples (e.g.Eskridge et al. 2000, AJ, 119, 536, Marinova & Jogee 2006,
astro-ph/0608039); (2) the optical bar fraction rises for bluer galaxies,
suggesting a relation between bars and star formation; (3) preliminary analyzes
suggest that the optical bar fraction increases steeply with the galaxy
effective radius; (4) the optical bar fraction at z~0 is ~35% for bright disks
(M_g<=-19.3 mag) and strong (bar ellipticity >0.4), large-scale (bar semi-major
axis >1.5 kpc) bars, which is comparable to the value of 30+/-6% reported
earlier (Jogee et al. 2004) for similar disks and bars at z~0.2-1.0.
