The Maya civilization developed across southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and parts of Honduras and El Salvador, and its descendants still number well over six million today. Its people began building cities around 750 BC and used hieroglyphic writing by the 3rd century BC, making Maya script the most sophisticated writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. During the Classic period, from about 250 AD, many city-states traded with each other, and rivals such as Tikal and Calakmul competed for power. Their elites recorded history and ritual knowledge in screenfold books, and their mathematics included one of the earliest explicit uses of zero. Their calendars were a set of interlocking ritual cycles. In the 9th century the central lowland cities collapsed in widespread warfare and abandonment. The last Maya city, Nojpetén, fell to Spanish forces in 1697.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.