Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
Recent investigations of the stellar content of giant H II regions and star formation bursts in nearby galaxies are summarized. The preliminary results of a spectroscopic survey of 78 H II regions in 15 galaxies are presented. A minimum frequency of 30 percent is found for the occurrence of luminous Wolf-Rayet stars in such bursts of star formation. Observations of the positions of historical type II supernovae revealed the presence of WC stars, indicating very high ZAMS masses for the SN progenitors. The application of population synthesis models to the analysis of the integrated stellar spectra in terms of IMF parameters is discussed. An example of such an analysis for a giant H II region in Cen A is presented.