  As a major component of the LAMOST Galactic surveys, the LAMOST Spectroscopic
Survey of the Galactic Anti-centre (LSS-GAC) aims to survey a significant
volume of the Galactic thin/thick discs and halo for a contiguous sky area of
over 3,400 deg$^2$ centred on the Galactic anti-centre ($|b| \leq 30^{\circ}$,
$150 \leq l \leq 210^{\circ}$), and obtain $\lambda\lambda$3700 -- 9000 low
resolution ($R \sim 1,800$) spectra for a statistically complete sample of
$\sim 3$\,M stars of all colours down to a limiting magnitued of $r$ $\sim$
17.8\,mag (to 18.5\,mag for limited fields). Together with Gaia, the LSS-GAC
will yield a unique dataset to advance our understanding of the structure and
assemblage history of the Galaxy, in particular its disk(s). In addition to the
main survey, the LSS-GAC will also target hundreds of thousands objects in the
vicinity fields of M\,31 and M\,33 and survey a significant fraction (over a
million) of randomly selected very bright stars (VB; $r \le 14$ mag) in the
northern hemisphere. During the Pilot and the first year Regular Surveys of
LAMOST, a total of 1,042,586 [750,867] spectra of a signal to noise ratio
S/N(7450\AA) $\ge$ 10 [S/N(4650\AA) $\ge$ 10] have been collected. In this
paper, we present a detailed description of the target selection algorithm,
survey design, observations and the first data release of value-added
catalogues (including radial velocities, effective temperatures, surface
gravities, metallicities, values of interstellar extinction, distances, proper
motions and orbital parameters) of the LSS-GAC.
