Inspired by the second conference on ''Vortex Matter in Superconductors at Extreme Scales and Conditions'', Crete, September 15-25, 2001 a short overview is presented over the properties of vortices occurring in various fields of physics. We will describe and compare vortices in superconductors, superfluids, Bose-Einstein condensates, plasmas, meteorology and cosmology. In fact, three classes of vortices are identified, namely classical vortices, quantized vortices and topological vortices.