It has long been known that adipose tissue in obesity is in a heightened state of inflammation. Recently, our understanding of this has been transformed by the knowledge that immune cells such as macrophages and T cells can infiltrate adipose tissue and are responsible for the majority of inflammatory cytokine production. These seminal findings have opened up a new area in biology that is garnering the interest of scientists involved in research relating to cell motility, inflammation, obesity, physiology, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Some important general questions relevant to this field are: how are macrophages recruited to adipose tissue in obesity? What are the physiological consequences of macrophage-adipocyte interactions? Do these inflammatory macrophages contribute to pathophysiological conditions associated with obesity, such as insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, diabetes and cardiovascular disease? This review focuses on the first of these important questions. Keywords activation; adipose tissue; chemokines; crown-like structures; hypoxia; inflammation; insulin resistance; leptin; lymphocytes; macrophages During the past two decades, the complex nature of adipose tissue (AT) has become an area of intense investigation. This is in part due to the growing worldwide obesity epidemic, and in part to the identification of leptin as an adipokine secreted from AT. Since the discovery of leptin, many other adipokines, such as adiponectin, resistin, visfatin and omentin, have also been identified. These discoveries have led to the first revolution in the field of AT biology, the identification of AT as an endocrine organ. More recently, it has been discovered that not only adipocytes, but also immune cells, such as macrophages [1,2] and T lymphocytes [3][4][5], reside in AT, and that these cells may induce insulin resistance by promoting a proinflammatory milieu within the AT. This discovery has led to the second revolution in the field of AT biology,