  The classification of the coadjoint orbits of the Virasoro algebra is
reviewed and is then applied to analyze the so-called global Liouville
equation. The review is self-contained, elementary and is tailor-made for the
application. It is well-known that the Liouville equation for a smooth, real
field $\phi$ under periodic boundary condition is a reduction of the SL(2,R)
WZNW model on the cylinder, where the WZNW field g in SL(2,R) is restricted to
be Gauss decomposable. If one drops this restriction, the Hamiltonian reduction
yields, for the field $Q=\kappa g_{22}$ where $\kappa\neq 0$ is a constant,
what we call the global Liouville equation. Corresponding to the winding number
of the SL(2,R) WZNW model there is a topological invariant in the reduced
theory, given by the number of zeros of Q over a period. By the substitution
$Q=\pm\exp(- \phi/2)$, the Liouville theory for a smooth $\phi$ is recovered in
the trivial topological sector. The nontrivial topological sectors can be
viewed as singular sectors of the Liouville theory that contain blowing-up
solutions in terms of $\phi$. Since the global Liouville equation is
conformally invariant, its solutions can be described by explicitly listing
those solutions for which the stress-energy tensor belongs to a set of
representatives of the Virasoro coadjoint orbits chosen by convention. This
direct method permits to study the `coadjoint orbit content' of the topological
sectors as well as the behaviour of the energy in the sectors. The analysis
confirms that the trivial topological sector contains special orbits with
hyperbolic monodromy and shows that the energy is bounded from below in this
sector only.
