The young globular clusters of the LMC have ages of 107–108 y. Their masses and structure are similar to those of the smaller galactic globular clusters. Their stellar mass functions (in the mass range 6 m⊙ to 1.2 m⊙) vary greatly from cluster to cluster, although the clusters are similar in total mass, age, structure and chemical composition. It would be very interesting to know why these clusters are forming now in the LMC and not in the Galaxy.

I will talk about the “young globular” or “blue populous” clusters of the LMC. They were first identified as a family by Hodge (1961). The ages of these objects are 107 to 108 y, and their masses are 104 to 105 m⊙, so they are populous enough to be really useful for studying the evolution of massive stars. I will not discuss this aspect (see the extensive work by Flower and Hodge and Robertson since 1974), but will concentrate on the structure and stellar content of these young clusters.