Drell-Yan and vector boson plus jets measurements with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive production of W and Z bosons as well as the off-shell Z/gamma production are standard candles at hadron colliders. The measurement of their production cross-sections can be compared to theory calculations at NNLO QCD and has an impact on our knowledge of the parton densities of the proton. Run-1 studies carried out by the ATLAS Collaboration are reviewed and first LHC Run-2 results are included. Measurements of the transverse momentum of Z/gamma bosons have been performed in different di-lepton invariant mass and rapidity regions. These measurements are sensitive to soft resummation effects and hard jet emissions for small and large momentum transfers, respectively, probing QCD in a unique way. Productions of light and heavy-flavour jets in association with a W or a Z boson in proton-proton collisions are important processes to study QCD in multi-scale environments and have sensitivity to parton density functions. The ratio of (Z+jets)/(W+jets) provides a precise test of QCD due to the large cancellations of theoretical and experimental uncertainties.