On the spatial distribution of the galactic Wolf-Rayet stars

From a new compilation of spectral types and photometry (version April '98 on the Web) performed by van der Hucht for the Galactic WR stars, we have estimated the distance using two different luminosity-spectral type calibrations. Both determinations lead to similar results. On the basis of newly determined distances we have performed a quantitative analysis of the spatial density distribution for the WN and WC spectral types as well as for the whole WR sample and compared them to the one depicted by the large star-forming regions delineated by the population of young open clusters (YOCs). WR stars show a clumpy distribution similar to the one shown by the YOCs and the WN and WC spectral classes present different galactic distributions as well. Otherwise, variations of the WC/WN quotient do not show a clear correlation with the galactic metallicity gradient, on the contrary this ratio seems to be constant on regions of about 1 kpc in size and shows significant variations (even by a factor of 8) between the closest star-forming complexes.