Sex and the City was a popular American cable television program based on the novel of the same name by Candace Bushnell. It was originally broadcast on the HBO network from 1998 until 2004.

Set in New York City, the show focused on the lives of four female best friends, three of whom are in their early-to-mid thirties, and one of whom, Samantha, is in her forties (though by 2004 they had reached their mid-to-late thirties and forties, respectively). A sitcom with soap opera elements, the show often tackled socially relevant issues, such as the status of women in society. Sex and the City premiered on June 6, 1998, and the last original episode aired on February 22, 2004. A movie version of the series, which was originally supposed to have been produced in 2004, but subsequently cancelled, is said to be back on track.

The show was primarily filmed at New York City's Silvercup Studios and on location in and around Manhattan. Since it ended, the show has been aired in syndication on networks such as TBS, The CW, WGN, and many other local stations.

Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is literally the voice of the show; she narrates each episode. Each episode is structured around her train of thought while writing her weekly column, "Sex and the City" for the fictitious newspaper, The New York Star. A member of the New York glitterati, she is a club/bar/restaurant staple who is known for her unique fashion sense; she eclectically joins together various styles into one outfit and it is not uncommon for her to pair inexpensive vintage pieces with high-end couture. Throughout the six seasons Carrie meets famous people, both fictional and non-fictional. A self-proclaimed shoe fetishist, she focuses most of her attention on journalism. She works on her PowerBook in her apartment, writing newspaper articles focusing on the different aspects of a relationship. Carrie is also the thinker of the group. Often exceeding her spending limit in one shopping trip, it is unclear how the modest income of a newspaper columnist could support such an addiction. In later seasons, her essays are collected as a book and she begins taking assignments from Vogue and New York Magazine. Carrie is very proud of her home, a one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment in an Upper East Side brownstone, which she eventually purchases, and lives in for the run of the series. Her focus is on finding true love and embracing the special bond that she shares with her friends, who Mr. Big refers to as the other "loves of her life." Mr. Big captures her heart but their great love is sometimes juxtaposed with the struggles they have to compromise on in their relationship. His love, yet elusiveness, part of his personality, attracts and frustrates Carrie. She finds the commitment and sweetness that's missing with him in great loves like Aidan Shaw and Aleksandr Petrovsky, but ultimately she and Mr. Big share the greatest bond and, with the passage of time and a more open heart, he finds his way back to her.

Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) is an art dealer with a rigid Connecticut uptight blue-blooded upbringing. She is the most conservative and optimistic of the group, the one who places the most emphasis on emotional love as opposed to lust, and is always searching for her "knight in shining armor." Carrie dedicates her book to Charlotte, whom she writes, "Always believes in love." She is a true romantic. Often scoffing at the lewder, more libertine antics that the show presents (primarily by way of Samantha), in her own way, Charlotte presents a more traditional attitude about relationships, usually based around "the rules" of love and dating. Despite her conservative outlook, she has been known to make concessions (while married) that even surprised her sexually freer girlfriends (such as her level of dirty talk, oral sex in public and "tuchus-lingus"). She gives up her career shortly after her first marriage to Trey MacDougal, to become a stay at home Mom and do volunteer work, but divorces upon irreconcilable differences around in vitro fertilization and continues to live in their Park Avenue apartment; which she had to struggle to keep because of her Mother-In-Law's interference in Charlotte and Trey's divorce settlement. She eventually remarries to her less than perfect, but good-hearted divorce lawyer, Harry Goldenblatt after converting to Judaism. Charlotte was a star all through her academic and social life, a "straight A" student who eventually attended Smith College where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma to major in Art History with a minor in Finance. Throughout the show it is also revealed that Charlotte was voted homecoming queen, prom queen, "most popular," student body president, track team captain, and was active as a teen model.

Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a career-minded lawyer with extremely cynical views on relationships and men. A Harvard University graduate from Philadelphia with two siblings, she is Carrie's best friend, confidante, and voice of reason. In the early seasons, she is portrayed as masculine and borderline misandric, but this image softens over the years, particularly after she becomes pregnant by her on again-off again boyfriend, Steve Brady, whom she eventually marries. Miranda is nobody's fool and is smart enough to demand the "short hair discount." The birth of her son, Brady Hobbes, brings up new issues for her Type A, workaholic personality, but she soon finds a way to balance career, being single and motherhood. Of the four women, she is the first to purchase her own apartment (across the park from Carrie, on the Upper West Side), and later a home in Brooklyn. Miranda is obsessed with Jules and Mimi, an imaginary BBC America soap opera inside Sex and the City.

Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) is the oldest of the group. She and Carrie are more of the free spirits, and she seems to understand Carrie's bolder side more than her other friends; whereas Charlotte connects with Carrie's sentimentality and Miranda is a down-to-earth friend who gives her advice. Samantha refers to Carrie as her best friend. She is an independent publicist and a seductress who avoids emotional involvement at all costs, while satisfying her carnal desires. She believes that she has had "hundreds" of soulmates and insists that her sexual partners leave, "an hour after I climax." Throughout the course of the show it is revealed that Samantha's glamorous, impenetrable facade and dismissive approach to love actually hides a sensitive, caring heart. Though she refuses to drop her mask, privately she struggles with a broken heart after hotel magnate and philanderer Richard Wright has problems staying monogamous in their relationship and cheats on her. This wounds her pride and it takes her awhile before becoming emotionally attached to her next boyfriend, actor/waiter, Smith Jerrod. But eventually she can't help but give her heart to this man who loves her selflessly and is always there for her. Long before she meets Smith in Season 6, in Season 3, when she has the flu, her vulnerabilities about love are revealed, in a conversation with Carrie. Smith ends up being just the man she described then as needing - one who matches her wild passion for love and sex, and who will always hold her hand. She didn't realize that both qualities could be found in a man, until she committed to Smith. Aside from these, Samantha also has a number of other real relationships in the show, albeit far less than the number of her casual sex encounters. However, this is hardly exclusive to Samantha, though as a rule, hers are far more unconventional and frequent than those of her friends. For example, Samantha has a (relatively) long term relationship with a lesbian artist named Maria. In Season 3, she moves from her full-service Upper East Side apartment to an expensive loft in the then-burgeoning Meatpacking District. In Season 6, Samantha's character further develops when she is unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer when visiting a plastic surgeon for a breast implant consultation. An operation, chemotherapy, and her powerful will help Samantha to beat cancer, and it becomes clear the experience has endowed her with a new perspective (and a new excuse to be fashionable, as she thereafter begins wearing all manner of wigs, hats, and bandannas).