The Nature of the Local Group

Abstract

The Local Group provides an interesting and representative sample of galaxies in the rest of the Universe. The high accuracy with which many problems can be addressed in Local Group galaxies is of paramount importance for understanding galaxy formation and evolution. This contribution presents a short review of overall Local Group properties followed by short discussions of five topics in which the study of Local Group members provides particularly significant information. These topics are only examples of the usefulness and potential of Local Group research. The five selected topics are the formation of the Milky Way, galaxy destruction and tidal streams, detailed galactic chemical evolution, star formation history determination, and low surface brightness extended structures.