  We present a QCD analysis of the proton structure function $F_2$ measured by
the H1 experiment at HERA, combined with data from previous fixed target
experiments. The gluon density is extracted from the scaling violations of
$F_2$ in the range $2\cdot 10^{-4}<x<3\cdot 10^{-2}$ and compared with an
approximate solution of the QCD evolution equations. The gluon density is found
to rise steeply with decreasing $x$.
