Wide-angle photographs of the Northern Milky Way reveal a complex system of dark clouds covering the galactic longitudes from 1 = 90° to about 1 = 200° (fig.). This Northern Dark Cloud System is a coherent structure of individual clouds of preferentially cellular appearance. The cloud system has to be assigned to the local spiral arm. This is substantiated by the large extent in galactic latitudes and its proximity to well-established tracers of the local spiral arm.