Chronic airway inflammatory diseases are kinds of respiratory diseases caused by infection or allergy, which are involved in airway structural cells and multiple inflammatory cells and cytokines. Their etiology and specific pathogenesis are complex and changeable, and remain unclear. The nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor family, pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome, is an important component of innate immunity and closely correlates with the development and progression of many chronic inflammatory diseases. This article mainly expounds the activation mechanism and pulmonary expression of NLRP3 inflammasome and it's expression in the lung, and also summarizes its activity change and role during the progression of chronic inflammatory diseases using chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma as the examples, to provide a basis for targeting NLRP3 inflammasome to treat chronic airway inflammatory diseases.