1.1. The Galactic bulge

I review current work on the Galactic bulge, with emphasis on issues that may connect to the environment of the Galactic Center. There is growing evidence that the field population of the bulge at RGC > 500pc is as old as the metal rich Galactic center globular clusters, and that field and clusters have the same spatial and metallicity distribution. We suggest that by analogy, extragalactic metal rich cluster systems, which also tend to follow the spheroid light, are old. On the other hand, there has been long standing evidence for an age gradient toward the Galactic center, and recent observations confirm without doubt that there is active star formation there. If a long-lived bar has been funneling gas (and inducing star formtion) in the central 100 pc, the star formation history there will be complicated and interesting.