If you ever find yourself far removed from the light pollution that saturates the city and suburban skies, take a look at the night sky and prepare to be impressed. Those of us who spend most of our lives in and around cities are often awestruck by how many stars there are out there once we get away from the glaring lights. Of particular note is a white band of dense stars and dust that splits the sky. This is the Milky Way.
But, the Milky Way is actually two things - the beautiful celestial view we enjoy from here on Earth and the galaxy in which we live. What you see when you look up at the sky at that dense trail of dust and stars is actually our galaxy as seen from our position within one of its spiral arms. It will appear brightest if you look towards the constellation Sagittarius because that way lies the center of our galaxy and, hence, the densest collection of material.
The Milky Way galaxy is estimated to contain approximately 100-400 billion stars. It is part of a group of galaxies called the Local Group - which in turn is part of a massive cluster of additional galaxies and material known as the Virgo Supercluster. The Milky Way galaxy is also part of a binary pair of galaxies (with the other one being Andromeda) and is orbited by a number of smaller galaxies.