We consider the problem of orienting the edges of a planar graph in such a way that the out-degree of each vertex is minimized. If, for each vertex v, the out-degree is at most d, then we say that such an orientation is d-bounded. We prove the following results: ffl Each planar graph has a 5-bounded acyclic orientation, which can be constructed in linear time. ffl Each planar graph has a 3-bounded orientation, which can be constructed in linear time. ffl A 6-bounded acyclic orientation, and a 3-bounded orientation, of each planar graph can each be constructed in parallel time O(log n log n) on an EREW PRAM, using O(n= log n log n) processors. As an application of these results, we present a data structure such that each entry in the adjacency matrix of a planar graph can be looked up in constant time. The data structure uses linear storage, and can be constructed in linear time. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521. On...