It is said that Taris was once a jewel of the Ojoster sector, its planetwide urban sprawl even rivalling the splendour and majesty of Coruscant itself. Beings from across the galaxy had flocked to its towering spires, while business and trade from the nearby hyperspace routes brought innumerable riches to what was dubbed the "Coruscant of the Outer Rim." Yet, as with many grand civilisations across the galactic rim, Taris too fell victim to corruption and decay. By the time of the Great Sith War, the planet had turned into an overpopulated city-world where swoop gangs terrorised the denizens of the Lower City and the humanocentric Tarisian nobility of the Upper City evicted all undesirables into the lower levels.

Yet, tragedy struck Taris during the Jedi Civil War, when the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith of that time ordered a planetary bombardment that saw the world's bottomless towers reduced to rubble and ash. For three centuries thereafter, nature reclaimed much of Taris as the native bogstalkers returned to its skies, the ferrazid hounds lived in the shadows of broken skyscrapers, and the monstrous sithspawn known as rakghouls broke free from the Undercity and spread across the ruins of the planet. After the Great Galactic War, the Republic launched a restoration project to resettle the planet of Taris and restore its lost grandeur. Nonetheless, the numerous conflicts and skirmishes that plagued this part of the galaxy over the millennia that followed, as well as hordes of rakghouls scouring the untamed wilderness of Durasteel ruins, prevented the Republic from fully realizing its plans. While much of the planetary surface was cleared of the rubble of the old world and new glistening metropolises were built, the planet remained a minor trade node along the Hydian Way.

Today, Taris' primary landmass consists largely of untamed jungles that shelter many of its native species, like the bogworms or the coin-crabs, and various immigrant species of fauna, such as the ferocious gundark or mighty acklay. The few grasslands are home to herds of nexu, while cy'eens have been reported to dwell within the ancient sunken ruins deep beneath the blue waves of Taris. Most of the present-day Tarisians live concentrated within the few metropolises that dot the planet's surface, such as the old capital city of Altaira, the island city of Muliphein, or Olaris, which was built on the site of the first attempt at resettlement all those millennia ago. Many descendants of the Humans, Twi'leks, Cathar, Rodians, and other aliens that once lived on the planet returned as new citizens of Taris. Yet, while the hordes of rakghouls have been hunted down to acceptable levels and the planet's surface is habitable yet again, the scars of the Sith's bombardment still run deep within the culture and society of those who call Taris home.