Spectrum of the Laplace operator on closed surfaces

A survey is given of classical and relatively recent results on the distribution of the eigenvalues of the Laplace operator on closed surfaces. For various classes of metrics the dependence of the behaviour of the second term in Weyl's formula on the geometry of the geodesic flow is considered. Various versions of trace formulae are presented, along with ensuing identities for the spectrum. The case of a compact Riemann surface with the Poincare metric is considered separately, with the use of Selberg's formula. A number of results on the stochastic properties of the spectrum in connection with the theory of quantum chaos and the universality conjecture are presented. Bibliography: 51 titles.