  This article summarizes the structural parameters of the Galactic bulge and
disk, and discusses the interpretation of the bulge microlensing observations
and the determination of the Milky Way's luminous mass from the terminal
velocity curve and the Oort limit. The bulge is a rotating bar with corotation
radius around 4 kpc. The NIR disk has a short scale-length. The measured
surface density of the local disk is in good agreement with the prediction of a
maximum NIR disk model for the Milky Way. The preliminary new value for the
microlensing optical depth of clump giant sources is within $1.7\sigma$ of the
prediction by the maximum NIR disk model, while the optical depth for all
sources is still significantly higher. These results imply that cold dark
matter cannot dominate inside the solar radius.
