The 456-hectare (1,130-acre) national park is situated approximately 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) south-east of the Sydney central business district, on the northern and southern headlands of Botany Bay.

It is a place where botanist Sir Joseph Banks and naturalist Dr Daniel Solander collected plant specimens in 1770 as part of the first landing of the Endeavour in Australia.

[3] The national park is also the site where Captain James Cook first set foot on Australian soil in 1770, marking the beginning of Britain's interest in Australia.

At about the same time a series of parallel dunes formed behind Bate Beach and Towra Point as the Georges River estuary shifted and sand and mud were dropped to the north of the Kurnell isthmus.

On both shorelines are many midden sites providing evidence of the rich variety of sea foods enjoyed by the Indigenous people, as well as reptiles and mammals which also lived in the heath and forests.

[2] At the same time, Botany Bay was visited by the French expedition under the command of Jean-Francois Galaup de Lapérouse, whose frigates La Boussole and Astrolabe anchored near Frenchman's Beach on 24 January 1788.

From about 1820, a small contingent of Government troops were stationed at La Perouse headland to scout for the unexpected arrival of ships and to monitor and control smuggling activity.

[5][2] By 1869, in response to the perceived threat of armed attack by foreign forces, a program to bolster the colony's defences was in place and a military road was constructed to the La Perouse headland.

Members of the La Perouse and Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land councils and other Dharawal descendants regularly visit the area, maintaining close connections to Country and ancestors.

[2][18] During the Great Depression, La Perouse was the site of a shanty town known as Happy Valley, which was located within the boundaries of the Botany Bay National Park behind Congwong Beach.

Here Birnie established a farm, raising vegetables and stock and constructing a homestead on the site of the current Alpha House near Captain Cooks Landing Place in the Kamay Botany Bay National Park.

[2] In 1821, another grant was made of 1,000 acres at the nearby Quibray Bay to John Connell, a free settler who arrived in NSW in 1801 and set up a large ironmongery in Sydney.

[2][13] Holt established a scientific oyster farming program at Quibray Bay, attempted to raise sheep on specially planted pastures of imported grass and dabbled in timber and even coal mining on the Kurnell Peninsula.

This work was done with the assistance of many employees, including a number of Aboriginal people such as William Rowley, a Gweagal man, who was also an enterprising local fisherman born at Towra Point.

[2][23][24] The La Perouse museum precinct in Botany Bay National Park is to be reinvigorated, with the NSW Government and Randwick City Council moving to lease the historic site.

The listing boundary also includes the Towra Point Nature Reserve, an area of 386.4 hectares (955 acres) of wetlands located to the west of Kurnell village in Botany Bay.

An area of land bordering on Grose Street contains over 140 species, including plants regarded as rare and the last remaining example of the full diversity of Eastern Suburbs banksia scrub.

[2][26] The northern section of Kamay Botany Bay National Park contains a number of sites relating to the pre-contact Aboriginal occupation, including rock engravings and shell middens.

[2][10] The former cable station is a two-storey rendered masonry building situated on a grassy knoll of La Perouse Headland facing north overlooking Frenchman's Bay.

[2][19] The southern section of Kamay Botany Bay National Park covers an area of about 324 hectares (800 acres) on the eastern end of the Kurnell Peninsula.

[2] The Meeting Place contains a number of monuments and memorials to Cook; the botanist Solander; Sir Joseph Banks; and Forby Sutherland, an Endeavour crew member who died at Botany Bay.

The green and gold bell frog (Litoria aurea) and the tinkling froglet (Crinia tinnula), both threatened, have been recorded in the southern part of the park, along with the more common eastern long-necked tortoise (Chelodina longicollis).

Some of the species noted to be of local, state or regional significance are the Japanese snipe, whimbrel, Arctic jaeger, common eastern tern, peregrine falcon, red-necked stint, powerful owl (threatened), silvereye, red-browed finch, New Holland honeyeater and superb fairywren.

[30] As at 29 July 2013, Kamay Botany Bay National Park and Towra Point Nature Reserve are of outstanding state heritage significance as a rare place demonstrating the continuous history of occupation of the east coast of Australia.

[2] The place is of state significance for the technical achievement of Banks and Solander who during their visit in 1770 made the first important collection of fauna and flora from Australia which included some items that had never before been described and classified.

[2] Kamay Botany Bay National Park is historically significant as it was the first point of landing of the first fleet of settlers in Australia and the site of later developments in colonial defences and customs regulation.

[2] Kamay Botany Bay National Park and Towra Point Nature Reserve are historically significant as the place where Joseph Banks's and Daniel Solander's unique botanical collection was sourced and later classified using the Linnaean system of classification.

[2] Kamay Botany Bay National Park and Towra Point Nature Reserve is significant for its association with important European explorers and scientists and their life's work.

Both the northern and southern sections of the Botany Bay National Park are of state heritage significance for members of the local and statewide Aboriginal community as it is the site of the first meeting of Indigenous and European cultures.

[2] Kamay Botany Bay National Park is a representative example of a site with an extensive grouping of memorials commemorating highly significant historic events: the historic meeting of Indigenous and British cultures, the exploration of Captain James Cook, the important scientific collection work undertaken on the site by Banks and Solander, the noted French explorer Comte de Lapérouse and his party.