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Sensitive ground-based submillimeter surveys, such as ATLASGAL, provide aglobal view on the distribution of cold dense gas in the Galactic plane. Herewe use the 353 GHz maps from the Planck/HFI instrument to complement theground-based APEX/LABOCA observations with information on larger angularscales. The resulting maps reveal the distribution of cold dust in the innerGalaxy with a larger spatial dynamic range. We find examples of elongatedstructures extending over angular scales of 0.5 degree. Corresponding to >30 pcstructures in projection at a distance of 3 kpc, these dust lanes are veryextended and show large aspect ratios. Furthermore, we assess the fraction ofdense gas ($f_{\rm DG}$), and estimate 2-5% (above A$_{\rm{v}}>$7 mag) onaverage in the Galactic plane. PDFs of the column density reveal the typicallyobserved log-normal distribution for low- and exhibit an excess at high columndensities. As a reference for extragalactic studies, we show the line-of-sightintegrated N-PDF of the inner Galaxy, and derive a contribution of this excessto the total column density of $\sim2.2$%, above $N_{\rm H_2} =2.92\times10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$. Taking the total flux density, we provide anindependent estimate of the mass of molecular gas in the inner Galaxy of$\sim1\times10^9\,M_{\odot}$, which is consistent with previous estimates usingCO emission. From the mass and $f_{\rm DG}$ we estimate a Galactic SFR of $\dotM = 1.3\,M_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$. While the distribution of diffuse gas ishomogenous in the inner Galaxy, the CMZ stands out with a higher dense gasfraction. The low star formation efficiency of the Milky Way is well explainedby the low $f_{\rm DG}$ in the Galactic ISM, while the high $f_{\rm DG}$towards the CMZ, despite its low star formation activity, suggests that, inthat particular region of our Galaxy, high-density gas is not the bottleneckfor star formation.

The ATLASGAL survey: distribution of cold dust in the Galactic plane. Combination with Planck data