The Dark Energy Survey is a project to map 5000 sq-degrees of the South Galactic Cap in 5 bands, g,r,i,z,y, to about 24th magnitude. The project plans on using these data to measure the properties of dark energy using 4 separate experiments: type Ia supernova, wide field shear-shear weak lensing, cluster counting, and in a photometric redshift BAO measurement. The survey uses a new 500 Megapixel camera, DECam, on 525 nights of an existing telescope, the CTIO Blanco 4m, and uses a new data management system to reduce the data to catalogs ready for science. We are scheduled to see first light in 2011.