We present a catalogue of starless and protostellar clumps associated with infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) in a 40 degrees wide region of the inner Galactic plane (|b|<=1). We have extracted the far-infrared (FIR) counterparts of 3493 IRDCs with known distance in the Galactic longitude range 15<=l10^4^M_{sun} in mass and up to 10^5^L{sun} in luminosity. The mass-radius distribution shows that almost 30% of the starless clumps identified in this survey could form high-mass stars; however these massive clumps are confined in only 4% of the IRDCs. Assuming a minimum mass surface density threshold for the formation of high-mass stars, the comparison of the numbers of massive starless clumps and those already containing embedded sources suggests an upper limit lifetime for the starless phase of ~10^5^yr for clumps with a mass M>500M{sun}_.

Cone search capability for table J/MNRAS/451/3089/clumps (Fitting parameters of the clumps (starless and protostellar))

Cone search capability for table J/MNRAS/451/3089/photo (Far-IR photometry of the starless and protostellar clumps)