  The hadronic sector of the standard model at low energies is described by a
non--decoupling effective field theory, chiral perturbation theory. An
introduction is given to the construction of effective chiral Lagrangians, both
in the purely mesonic sector and with inclusion of baryons. The connection
between the relativistic formulation and the heavy baryon approach to chiral
perturbation theory with baryons is reviewed.
