Cavalry
The French Army still has regiments with the historic designations of Cuirassiers, Hussars, Chasseurs, Dragoons and Spahis. Only the cavalry of the Republican Guard and a ceremonial fanfare detachment of trumpeters for the cavalry/armoured branch as a whole are now mounted.
In the Canadian Army, a number of regular and reserve units have cavalry roots, including The Royal Canadian Hussars (Montreal), the Governor General's Horse Guards, Lord Strathcona's Horse, The British Columbia Dragoons , The Royal Canadian Dragoons, and the South Alberta Light Horse. Of these, only Lord Strathcona's Horse and the Governor General's Horse Guards maintain an official ceremonial horse-mounted cavalry troop or squadron.
The modern Pakistan army maintains about 40 armoured regiments with the historic titles of Lancers, Cavalry or Horse. Six of these date back to the 19th century, although only the President's Body Guard remains horse-mounted.
In 2002, the Army of the Russian Federation reintroduced a ceremonial mounted squadron wearing historic uniforms.
Both the Australian and New Zealand armies follow the British practice of maintaining traditional titles (Light Horse or Mounted Rifles) for modern mechanised units. However, neither country retains a horse-mounted unit.
Several armored units of the modern United States Army retain the designation of "armored cavalry". The United States also has "air cavalry" units equipped with helicopters. The Horse Cavalry Detachment of the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, made up of active duty soldiers, still functions as an active unit, trained to approximate the weapons, tools, equipment and techniques used by the United States Cavalry in the 1880s.

Non-combat support roles: The First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry is a volunteer unit within the Pennsylvania Army National Guard which serves as a combat force when in federal service but acts in a mounted disaster relief role when in state service. In addition, the Parsons' Mounted Cavalry is a Reserve Officer Training Corps unit which forms part of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University. Valley Forge Military Academy and College also has a Mounted Company, known as D-Troop .
Some individual U.S. states maintain cavalry units as a part of their respective state defense forces. The Maryland Defense Force includes a cavalry unit, Cavalry Troop A, which serves primarily as a ceremonial unit. The unit training includes a saber qualification course based upon the 1926 U.S. Army course. Cavalry Troop A also assists other Maryland agencies as a rural search and rescue asset. In Massachusetts, The National Lancers trace their lineage to a volunteer cavalry militia unit established in 1836 and are currently organized as an official part of the Massachusetts Organized Militia. The National Lancers maintain three units, Troops A, B, and C, which serve in a ceremonial role and assist in search and rescue missions. In July 2004, the National Lancers were ordered into active state service to guard Camp Curtis Guild during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The Governor's Horse Guard of Connecticut maintains two companies which are trained in urban crowd control. In 2020, the California State Guard stood up the 26th Mounted Operations Detachment, a search-and-rescue cavalry unit.

Social status: From the beginning of civilization to the 20th century, ownership of heavy cavalry horses has been a mark of wealth amongst settled peoples. A cavalry horse involves considerable expense in breeding, training, feeding, and equipment, and has very little productive use except as a mode of transport.
For this reason, and because of their often decisive military role, the cavalry has typically been associated with high social status. This was most clearly seen in the feudal system, where a lord was expected to enter combat armored and on horseback and bring with him an entourage of lightly armed peasants on foot. If landlords and peasant levies came into conflict, the poorly trained footmen would be ill-equipped to defeat armored knights.
In later national armies, service as an officer in the cavalry was generally a badge of high social status. For instance prior to 1914 most officers of British cavalry regiments came from a socially privileged background and the considerable expenses associated with their role generally required private means, even after it became possible for officers of the line infantry regiments to live on their pay. Options open to poorer cavalry officers in the various European armies included service with less fashionable (though often highly professional) frontier or colonial units. These included the British Indian cavalry, the Russian Cossacks or the French Chasseurs d'Afrique.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries most monarchies maintained a mounted cavalry element in their royal or imperial guards. These ranged from small units providing ceremonial escorts and palace guards, through to large formations intended for active service. The mounted escort of the Spanish Royal Household provided an example of the former and the twelve cavalry regiments of the Prussian Imperial Guard an example of the latter. In either case the officers of such units were likely to be drawn from the aristocracies of their respective societies.

On film: Some sense of the noise and power of a cavalry charge can be gained from the 1970 film Waterloo, which featured some 2,000 cavalrymen, some of them Cossacks. It included detailed displays of the horsemanship required to manage animal and weapons in large numbers at the gallop (unlike the real battle of Waterloo, where deep mud significantly slowed the horses). The Gary Cooper movie They Came to Cordura contains a scene of a cavalry regiment deploying from march to battle line formation. A smaller-scale cavalry charge can be seen in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003); although the finished scene has substantial computer-generated imagery, raw footage and reactions of the riders are shown in the Extended Version DVD Appendices.
Other films that show cavalry actions include:

The Charge of the Light Brigade, about the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War
40,000 Horsemen, about the Australian Light Horse during the Sinai and Palestine campaign of World War I
The Lighthorsemen, about the Battle of Beersheba, 1917
War Horse, about the British cavalry in Europe during World War I
Hubal, about the last months (September 1939 – April 1940) of Poland's first World War II guerrilla, Major Henryk Dobrzański, "Hubal"
The Patriot includes light cavalry usage.
And Quiet Flows the Don depicts Don Cossacks during World War I
Kingdom of Heaven includes a cavalry charge during the Siege of Kerak
The Life and Times of Joseph J. Dumas semi-fictional video biography of a notable, modern cavalry officer
The Last Samurai – a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques
Napoleon, cavalry units play a role in several battles. The scene of the Battle of Waterloo includes the British use of infantry squares to defend against cavalry attacks.

Examples: 

Types: 

Units: 

Notable horse cavalrymen: Georgios Stanotas, commander of the Hellenic Army's Cavalry Division during World War II
Didier Courrèges, major in the French Army, member of École Nationale d'Équitation's Cadre Noir, Olympian at 2004 Summer Olympics
Edwin Ramsey, lieutenant colonel in the 26th Cavalry Regiment during World War II, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, led the last cavalry charge in American military history
General Fahrettin Altay, commander of the V. Cavalry Division of the Turkish 1st Army during the Turkish War of Independence, which was instrumental in victory over the invading Greek Army. His name is given to the new Turkish battle tank Altay. Atatürk'ün Bütün Eserleri, Cilt 27, Kaynak Yayınları, 1998, ISBN 978-975-343-235-1, p. 81.
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph J. Dumas, 46th Professor of Military Science at Michigan State University and a notable member and representative of the distinguished cavalry lineage.

Gallery: 

See also: Cavalry tactics
Shock tactics
Horses in warfare
Armored reconnaissance – a modern role in most militaries for 'cavalry' titled units

Notes: 

References: Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43519-6.
Ebrey PB, Walthall A, Palais JB (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-0-6181-3384-0. OCLC 61446526.
Falls, Cyril; G. MacMunn (1930). Military Operations Egypt & Palestine from the outbreak of war with Germany to June 1917. Official History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. 1. London: HM Stationery Office. OCLC 610273484.
Falls, Cyril; A. F. Becke (maps) (1930). Military Operations Egypt & Palestine from June 1917 to the End of the War. Official History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. 2 Part I. London: HM Stationery Office. OCLC 644354483.