In 1791 France sent a fleet under Bruni d'Entrecasteaux to search for the explorer Lapérouse, who had vanished in the Pacific in 1788. The naturalist Jacques Labillardière sailed with it and collected plants and animals around Australasia, Tasmania and the Pacific. In 1800 he published an account of the voyage, and between 1804 and 1806 his Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen, the first comprehensive work on Australian flora, describing hundreds of species. The search did not find Lapérouse, whose wrecked ships were found decades later at Vanikoro.

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.