「Produced by Tourism Bureau, Republic of China (Taiwan)，2009」
In September 1990, the then Minister of Transportation and Communications Clement C.P. Chang (張建邦) instructed the then Tourism Bureau Director-General Mao Chi-Kuo (毛治國) to plan and establish a centralized lantern event for the Yuanxiao Festival (Lantern Festival) . The reason for this was because the Minister felt it was too much trouble for the public to have to travel around on Yuanxiao Festival (Lantern Festival) to view the decorative lanterns displayed in various temples.

At that time, Taipei City already had a Yuanxiao Festival (Lantern Festival) lantern parade event, but since the Tourism Bureau is a central government agency, it felt that the lantern festival would have to meet international standards and be on a scale beyond just Taipei. However, the first problem for the holding of the lantern festival was deciding on the festival site. After considering various factors, the decision was finally made to hold the first Taiwan Lantern Festival at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

The next problem was that because of the vast the size of CKS Memorial Hall, a very large number of lanterns were needed to properly decorate the site. However, since the art of lantern-making had gradually declined in Taiwan over the years, the number of lanterns that could be produced were very limited. Therefore, the Tourism Bureau had to think of other ways to secure enough lanterns.

Colleagues from the Tourism Bureau spent more than three months rushing around soliciting help from temples, businesses, schools, and government agencies before they collected enough lanterns to hold the first-ever Taiwan Lantern Festival. This set the good example of "government organization, private participation" for the holding of large-scale festival events.

The Tourism Bureau looked for successful examples from history and from abroad to emulate, but no similar event had ever been held. So they took the approach of figuring this out step by step in the planning work of the lantern festival. As suggested by the consultant committee, they started out on the basis of existing traditional culture to form the ceremonies and forms of the lantern festival. The main contents of the lantern festival were designated as lantern-making contests, folk performances, folk performance troupes. and traditional lantern floats. This officially formed the main framework of the Taiwan Lantern Festival.

Based on the foundation of Taiwan's folk culture, the Taiwan Lantern Festival created a new tradition that revived not only traditional culture but also the traditional festival spirit for the people of Taiwan. Over the past 20 years. the Taiwan Lantern Festival has constantly grown and become increasingly international. The Discovery Channel recently called the Taiwan Lantern Festival one of the world's most fantastic festivals, which has also helped inject new life into Taiwan's tourism industry.