  Chandra is revolutionising our understanding of the X-ray emission from
spiral galaxies. Before Chandra, detailed extragalactic studies were limited to
Local Group galaxies. We are now able to obtain detailed inventories of sources
in galaxies outside the Local Group, allowing population studies for the first
time. In this review I will first discuss some intriguing observations of
globular cluster sources in M31, then move outside the Local Group and
summarise the observational properties of sources in several spiral galaxies
(both bulge dominated and disk dominated). The X-ray colors and variability
characteristics suggest that most of these sources are accreting binaries. High
mass X-ray binaries are formed preferentially in disk galaxies. Finally, I show
that the luminosity functions of spiral galaxies can be qualitatively
understood in terms of simple population models.
