The large decrease of the resistivity of mixed valent manganite perovskites, close to a paramagnetic to ferromagnetic transition (Tc) or in a applied magnetic field (colossal magnetoresistance or CMR), has been shown to arise from a strong charge-lattice coupling mediated by the Jahn-Teller distortion of Mn3+ -ions. We review recent structural work on conventional A1-x A ’xMnO3 and bi-layered A2–2x A’1+2x Mn2O7 manganite perovskites, that shows that this coupling gives rise to long range charge and/or orbital ordered crystal structures were Mn-spins couple strongly. However, for compositions of x ~0.3–0.4, long range charge and orbital ordering becomes frustrated giving rise to only short range correlations (or polarons). These polaronic correlations maintain their insulating characteristics and their instability close to Tc (with temperature and field) provides the driving force behind CMR. Recent work has been able to uncover the complex short range ordering of charges and orbitals at these compositions that show both longitudinal local distortions and/or co-existence with transverse distortions typically found at higher dopings. For Mn4+ -rich compositions (x >l/2), ground states tend towards antiferromagnetic insulating phases. Here the influence of relative small amounts of Mn3+ -ions is seen via spin canted ordering for extreme dopings (x ~0.95) or ferromagnetic exchange interactions and phase segregation at highly doped compositions (x ~0.8).