The formation an evolution of galaxies are together one of the most active research areas in astrophysics. Some ideas, however, have gained wide acceptance. Galaxy formation is presently believed to proceed directly from structure formation theories, formed as a result of tiny quantum fluctuations in the wake of the Big Bang. It is now widely accepted that galaxy evolution occurs within the frame work of a Λ Cold Dark Matter cosmology; that is to say that the clustering and merging is how galaxies gain in mass, and also can determine the shape and structure of a galaxy. However, some properties of galaxies remain unexplained by current galaxy formation theories. If we wish to understand why the galaxies nearby us look the way they do, we must couple theories of galaxy formation and evolution, to fully describe the local universe.