By the 1970s, Taipei Songshan Airport in the heart of the capital had reached its limits. Hemmed in by urban development, it could not expand to meet the island's growing international traffic. The solution was a new airport 40 kilometers west of Taipei, in the flatlands of Taoyuan. Terminal 1 opened on February 26, 1979, designed by Chinese-born, Taiwanese-American structural engineer Tung-Yen Lin. Its form drew inspiration from Eero Saarinen's Dulles International Airport Main Terminal near Washington, D.C. The five-story building arranged its gates in two parallel concourses connected by a central hall, forming a giant H shape visible from the air. All international flights migrated from Songshan to the new facility, and for two decades Terminal 1 handled everything Taiwan's growing economy could throw at it.

Terminal 2 arrived in 2000, initially with only its south concourse operational. The north concourse followed in 2005, bringing the total to 20 gates and capacity for 17 million passengers per year. A Japanese-designed renovation of Terminal 1, completed in 2012 by architect Norihiko Dan, doubled that building's floor area and earned the 2014 Taiwan Architecture Award. Even with both terminals renovated and expanded, the airport strained under growing demand. In 2016, Airports Council International ranked it the best airport in the Asia-Pacific region for its passenger volume, a recognition that both flattered and underscored the urgency of further expansion. The airport handles over 1.5 million tonnes of cargo annually, serves as the main hub for China Airlines, EVA Air, and Starlux Airlines, and connects Taipei to destinations across the globe.

In October 2015, the British firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, founded by Pritzker Prize laureate Richard Rogers, won the design competition for a new Terminal 3. The 640,000-square-meter structure will feature a wave-like roof from which lights hang, designed to move up and down reflecting passenger flow. The estimated cost exceeds US$2.3 billion, making it one of the most expensive construction projects in Taiwanese history. Beyond the terminal, the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project envisions an industrial zone spanning over 6,845 hectares around the airport, aimed at leveraging the hub's infrastructure to drive economic development. Construction has faced delays, particularly around land resumption controversies, but Terminal 3 remains on track for eventual completion.

Not every story from Taoyuan's tarmac is about growth. In February 1998, China Airlines Flight 676, an Airbus A300, crashed into a residential area during landing approach in poor weather, killing all 196 aboard and six people on the ground. Two years later, Singapore Airlines Flight 006 attempted takeoff on a closed runway during a typhoon and struck construction equipment, killing 83 of 179 occupants. These tragedies forced safety upgrades that made the airport substantially more resilient: Category III runway certifications, improved ground radar, and enhanced approach procedures. A 38-minute express train now links the airport to downtown Taipei via the Taoyuan Airport MRT, a piece of infrastructure that also represents something subtler: the transformation of a field in Taoyuan's flatlands into one of Asia's major aviation crossroads.