  77 W~UMa-type systems to $I=18$ mag in one of the 21 fields of OGLE have been
assessed in terms of utility for extraction of astrophysical information from
time-independent data such as colors, periods, maximum magnitudes, and
variability amplitudes in the final global OGLE catalog which will contain
$>1000$ contact binaries. A subset of systems with absolute magnitudes $M_I <
3$ permits mapping of stellar distribution towards the Galactic Bulge to about
6~kpc from us, with indications that the reddening $E_{V-I} > 0.6$.
