  The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) is designed to measure redshifts for
approximately 250000 galaxies. This paper describes the survey design, the
spectroscopic observations, the redshift measurements and the survey database.
The 2dFGRS uses the 2dF multi-fibre spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian
Telescope, which is capable of observing 400 objects simultaneously over a
2-degree diameter field. The source catalogue for the survey is a revised and
extended version of the APM galaxy catalogue, and the targets are galaxies with
extinction-corrected magnitudes brighter than b_J=19.45. The main survey
regions are two declination strips, one in the southern Galactic hemisphere
spanning 80deg x 15deg around the SGP, and the other in the northern Galactic
hemisphere spanning 75deg x 10deg along the celestial equator; in addition,
there are 99 fields spread over the southern Galactic cap. The survey covers
2000 sq.deg and has a median depth of z=0.11. Adaptive tiling is used to give a
highly uniform sampling rate of 93% over the whole survey region. Redshifts are
measured from spectra covering 3600A-8000A at a two-pixel resolution of 9.0A
and a median S/N of 13 per pixel. All redshift identifications are visually
checked and assigned a quality parameter Q in the range 1-5; Q>=3 redshifts are
98.4% reliable and have an rms uncertainty of 85 km/s. The overall redshift
completeness for Q>=3 redshifts is 91.8%, but this varies with magnitude from
99% for the brightest galaxies to 90% for objects at the survey limit. The
2dFGRS database is available on the WWW at http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS
