Star Formation History across the Magellanic Clouds and other Local Group galaxies

The Ks magnitude distribution of asymptotic giant branch stars provides important constraints on the spatial variation of metallicity and mean-age of the stellar population of galaxies. Here, I present results of the investigation of these parameters across the Magellanic Clouds, M33, NGC 6822 and SagDIG and I discuss the tremendous improvement that new wide-field near-infrared instruments (i.e. VISTA) will provide on our understanding of the global intrinsic as well as dynamical history of these systems.