We present a catalogue of non-nuclear regions containing Wolf-Rayet stars in
the metal-rich spiral galaxy M83 (NGC5236). From a total of 283 candidate
regions identified using HeII 4686 imaging with VLT-FORS2, Multi Object
Spectroscopy of 198 regions was carried out, confirming 132 WR sources. From
this sub-sample, an exceptional content of 1035 +/- 300 WR stars is inferred,
with N(WC)/N(WN) approx 1.2, continuing the trend to larger values at higher
metallicity amongst Local Group galaxies, and greatly exceeding current
evolutionary predictions at high metallicity. Late-type stars dominate the WC
population of M83, with N(WC8-9)/N(WC4-7)=9 and WO subtypes absent, consistent
with metallicity dependent WC winds. Equal numbers of late to early WN stars
are observed, again in contrast to current evolutionary predictions. Several
sources contain large numbers of WR stars. In particular, #74 (alias region 35
from De Vaucouleurs et al. contains 230 WR stars, and is identified as a Super
Star Cluster from inspection of archival HST/ACS images. Omitting this
starburst cluster would result in revised statistics of N(WC)/N(WN) approx 1
and N(WC8-9)/N(WC4-7) approx 6 for the `quiescent' disk population. Including
recent results for the nucleus and accounting for incompleteness in our
spectroscopic sample, we suspect the total WR population of M83 may exceed 3000
stars.Comment: 39 pages, 13 figures, 17 finding charts, accepted for Astronomy &
Astrophysics. Version will full resolution images available at
ftp://astro1.shef.ac.uk/pub/pac/m83.ps.g