Stars form in cold, dense clouds of molecular gas. This gas spans a wide range of density, pressure, composition, and dynamical state, and these properties affect how interacts with the galaxy and forms stars. Until the last few years, surveying this gas in other galaxies has been mostly restricted to coarse inventories, with little information on the physical properties of the gas. As a result, we so far lack a full, observationally-tested theory of cold gas in galaxies that spans cloud formation, star formation, and stellar feedback. Over the last few, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and upgraded facility like NOEMA have begun to change this situation. I will describe how a new generation of surveys are resolving the physical properties of gas - density, pressure, evolutionary state, and detailed relation to stars and other gas phases - across many galaxies. I will highlight results from the ongoing PHANGS-ALMA survey and the recently completed EMPIRE survey that both show a strong dependence of cold gas properties on host galaxy and dynamical environment within the galaxy.