This paper presents new deep and wide narrow-band surveys undertaken with United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), Subaru and the Very Large Telescope (VLT), a unique combined effort to select large, robust samples of H{alpha} star-forming galaxies at z = 0.40, 0.84, 1.47 and 2.23 (corresponding to look-back times of 4.2, 7.0, 9.2 and 10.6Gyr) in a uniform manner over ~2deg^2^ in the Cosmological Evolution Survey and Ultra Deep Survey fields. The deep multi-epoch H{alpha} surveys reach a matched 3{sigma} flux limit of ~3M_{sun}_/yr out to z=2.2 for the first time, while the wide area and the coverage over two independent fields allow us to greatly overcome cosmic variance and assemble by far the largest samples of H{alpha} emitters. Catalogues are presented for a total of 1742, 637, 515 and 807 H{alpha} emitters, robustly selected at z = 0.40, 0.84, 1.47 and 2.23, respectively, and used to determine the H{alpha} luminosity function and its evolution.