The first historical settlements in Hampi date back to 1 CE. Immediately before the rise of the Vijaynagara kings, the region was probably in the hands of chiefs of Kampili, now a small town, 19 km east of Hampi.

Hampi formed one of the core areas of the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1343 to 1565, when it was finally laid siege to by the Deccan Muslim confederacy. Hampi was chosen because of its strategic location, bounded by the torrential Tungabhadra river on one side and surrounded by defensible hills on the other three sides.

The site is significant historically and architecturally. The topography abounds with large stones which have been used to make statues of Hindu deities. The Archaeological Survey of India continues to conduct excavations in the area, to discover additional artifacts and temples.

Islamic Quarter also sometimes called, as the Moorish Quarter is located between the northern slope of the Malyavanta hill towards and the Talarigatta Gate. According to the archaeologists, high-ranking Muslim officers of the king’s court and the military officers stayed in this area.

The city of Vijayanagara was originally encompassed by seven lines of fortifications. These fortifications had a large number of bastions and gateways. The seventh & the innermost fortification enclosed the main city & is the best preserved. The extant monuments of Vijayanagara or Hampi can be divided into Religious, Civil & Military buildings. While most of the monuments at Hampi are from the Vijayanagara period, a small proportion may be assigned to pre-Vijayanagara times. The Jain temples on Hemakuta hill, the two Devi shrines & some other structures in the Virupaksha temple complex predate the Vijanagara empire. The earliest amongst them, the Shaiva shrines with their stepped pyramidal vimanas or superstructures, date to the early Chalukyan period around ninth-tenth century AD.