  Although the Gaia catalogue on its own will be a very powerful tool, it is
the combination of this highly accurate archive with other archives that will
truly open up amazing possibilities for astronomical research. The advanced
interoperation of archives is based on cross-matching, leaving the user with
the feeling of working with one single data archive. The data retrieval should
work not only across data archives, but also across wavelength domains. The
first step for seamless data access is the computation of the cross-match
between Gaia and external surveys. The matching of astronomical catalogues is a
complex and challenging problem both scientifically and technologically
(especially when matching large surveys like Gaia). We describe the cross-match
algorithm used to pre-compute the match of Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) with a
selected list of large publicly available optical and IR surveys. The overall
principles of the adopted cross-match algorithm are outlined. Details are given
on the developed algorithm, including the methods used to account for position
errors, proper motions, and environment; to define the neighbours; and to
define the figure of merit used to select the most probable counterpart.
Statistics on the results are also given. The results of the cross-match are
part of the official Gaia DR1 catalogue.
