Technical Abstract: The potato is one of the world's most important food crops, and the world's most important vegetable crop. Potato produces more carbohydrate per acre per year than any other crop except sugar cane. It has a higher quality protein than any other vegetable, and only soybeans yield more protein per acre. Potato has a rich genepool of nearly 200 tuber-bearing wild species that represent a huge and only partially explored reservoir of germplasm useful for potato breeding. These wild species have known desirable traits such as resistance to heat and frost, fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, mites, and insects. Most of these species are cross compatible with the cultivated potato either directly or through the use of 2n gametes. This paper provides an introduction to the structure, distribution, habitats, and use of wild and cultivated potatoes. It also discusses their collection, genetic resources, and taxonomy. Potato continues to be the focus of intense collecting and taxonomic research, and our understanding of the number of species and their interrelationships continues to change. This paper also provides the latest taxonomic summary of wild and cultivated potatoes.