The chemical evolution of the Milky Way

We will discuss some highlights concerning the chemical evolution of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. First we will describe the main ingredients necessary to build a model for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way. Then we will illustrate some Milky Way models which includes detailed stellar nucleosynthesis and compute the evolution of a large number of chemical elements, including C, N, O, $\alpha$-elements, Fe and heavier. The main observables and in particular the chemical abundances in stars and gas will be considered. A comparison theory-observations will follow and finally some conclusions from this astroarchaeological approach will be derived.