For centuries, humanity wondered if there were other worlds like ours in the Universe. For about a quarter of a century, we have known that planetary systems exist around other stars, and more than 3800 exoplanetary systems have been discovered so far. However, the large majority of the exoplanets remain invisible to us since we usually infer their presence by their effect on their star. The chapter is devoted to stellar hosts and their characteristics, emphasizing their description by discovery method and links between the properties of the host stars and their planets. The star-planet connection is vital to constrain the theories on the formation and evolution of planetary systems, including our own.

21 pages, 10 figures; accepted as a chapter in the book "Planetary systems now", eds. Luisa M. Lara and David Jewitt, World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd