  We analyse the stellar content of almost 300 deg^2 of the sky close to the
Galactic plane by directly comparing the predictions of the SKY model (Cohen
1994,1995; Wainscoat et al. 1992) with star counts taken from the Two Micron
Galactic plane Survey (TMGS: Garzon et al. 1993). Through these comparisons we
can examine discrepancies between counts and model and thereby elicit an
understanding of Galactic structure. Over the vast majority of areas in which
we have compared the TMGS data with SKY's predictions we find very good accord;
so good that we are able to remove the disc source counts to highlight
structure in the plane. The exponential disc is usually dominant, but by
relying on SKY's predicted disc counts we have been able to probe the molecular
ring, spiral arms, and parts of the bulge. The latter is clearly triaxial. We
recognize a number of off-plane dust clouds not readily included in models.
However, we find that, whilst the simple exponential extinction function works
well in the outer Galaxy, closer than about 4 kpc to the Centre the extinction
drops dramatically. We also examine the shape of the luminosity function of the
bulge and argue that the cores of all spiral arms we have observed contain a
significant population of supergiants that provides an excess of bright source
counts over those of a simple model of the arms. Analysis of one relatively
isolated cut through an arm near longitude 65 degrees categorically precludes
any possibility of a sech^2 z stellar density function for the disc.
