SmogRank / History / City race

Cities, worst air first, day by day

Each measured city's average over the 30 days to every day since January 2023, worst first. Find your own city to follow it through the race, or keep to one country.

The 30 days to20 May 2023 That day's board

The worst cities for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 20 May 2023: Grande Prairie 87.6 µg/m³, Lahore 69.0 µg/m³ and Dhaka 68.5 µg/m³.

  1. 1Grande PrairieCanada87.6
  2. 2LahorePakistan69.0
  3. 3DhakaBangladesh68.5
  4. 4DelhiIndia66.1
  5. 5LinaresChile58.6
  6. 6OsornoChile57.5
  7. 7NacimientoChile56.4
  8. 8KathmanduNepal52.6
  9. 9Puerto VarasChile50.3
  10. 10Fort St. JohnCanada50.3
  11. 11San CarlosChile48.7
  12. 12CuricóChile48.6
  13. 13LajaChile48.1
  14. 14RancaguaChile47.0
  15. 15SantiagoChile46.0
  16. 16ChillánChile44.1
  17. 17HyderabadIndia43.6
  18. 18PeshawarPakistan42.8
  19. 19HualquiChile42.8
  20. 20TalaganteChile42.5

+ 1,551 more cities, 42.4 µg/m³ and below

Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Hualpén since 20 May 2023, Belmopan since 15 May 2023, Shenyang since 13 May 2023 and 61 more cities. Days missing from the source archive fall in this window, so fewer countries are counted.

GoodModerateSensitive groupsUnhealthyVery unhealthyHazardousWHO 24-hour guideline, 15 µg/m³Fades where it stood: not counted that day

A city's number is its average over the 30 days, shown only when 21 of them were measured (5 of 7 on the 7-day race), the same minimum as the 30- and 7-day boards. A city whose monitors go quiet fades out where it stood rather than sliding down, so a gap never reads as cleaner air. Some large countries are thin or missing because their monitors' licences don't allow reuse. How we rank.

Not covered: the government monitoring networks of China and Turkey, which publish only on their own websites; we are building the readers for them. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.