The Structure and Content of Galaxy Outskirts

The outer regions of galaxies are expected to contain important clues about the way in which galaxies are assembled. Although quantitative study of these parts has been severely limited in the past, breakthroughs are now being made thanks to the combination of wide-area star counts, deep HST imagery and 8-m class spectroscopy. I review here several recent results concerning substructure, star clusters and stellar halos in the outer regions of our nearest large neighbours, M31 and M33.