  The Large sky Area Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) General
Survey is a spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately half
of the celestial sphere and collect 10 million spectra of stars, galaxies and
QSOs. Objects both in the pilot survey and the first year general survey are
included in the LAMOST First Data Release (DR1). The pilot survey started in
October 2011 and ended in June 2012, and the data have been released to the
public as the LAMOST Pilot Data Release in August 2012. The general survey
started in September 2012, and completed its first year of operation in June
2013. The LAMOST DR1 includes a total of 1202 plates containing 2,955,336
spectra, of which 1,790,879 spectra have observed signal-to-noise S/N >10. All
data with S/N>2 are formally released as LAMOST DR1 under the LAMOST data
policy. This data release contains a total of 2,204,696 spectra, of which
1,944,329 are stellar spectra, 12,082 are galaxy spectra and 5,017 are quasars.
The DR1 includes not only spectra, but also three stellar catalogues with
measured parameters: AFGK-type stars with high quality spectra (1,061,918
entries), A-type stars (100,073 entries), and M stars (121,522 entries). This
paper introduces the survey design, the observational and instrumental
limitations, data reduction and analysis, and some caveats. Description of the
FITS structure of spectral files and parameter catalogues is also provided.
