The proliferation of X-ray astronomy missions over the last 10 years has had a major impact on our knowledge of Galactic X-ray binaries. More recently, Chandra and XMM-Newton have provided a dramatically improved census of extra-galactic X-ray binaries. In this talk I will provide an overview of the various populations and observational properties of X-ray binaries in our Galaxy, in an effort to “set the scene” for a comparison with their extra-galactic counterparts.