[en] Inhomogeneities in the large-scale distribution of matter inevitably lead to the generation of large-scale anisotropy in the cosmic background radiation. We have computed the dipole, quadrupole, and higher order fluctuations expected in an Einstein--de Sitter cosmological model. The dipole and quadrupole anisotropies are comparable to the measured values, and impose important constraints on the allowable spectrum of large-scale matter density fluctuations. A significant dipole anisotropy is generated by the matter distribution on scales > or approx. =100 Mpc. The large-scale anisotropy is insensitive to the ionization history of the universe since decoupling, and cannot easily be reconciled with a galaxy formation theory that is based on primordial adiabatic density functuations