SmogRank / History / City race
Cities in Australia, 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 worst cities in Australia for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 19 Apr 2024: Canberra 8.1 µg/m³, Tuggeranong 7.9 µg/m³ and Townsville 4.9 µg/m³.
- 1CanberraAustralian Capital Territory8.1
- 2TuggeranongAustralian Capital Territory7.9
- 3TownsvilleQueensland4.9
- 4CairnsQueensland4.9
- 5MackayQueensland4.8
- 6MaryboroughQueensland4.6
- 7GladstoneQueensland4.4
- 8MoranbahQueensland4.4
- 9AyrQueensland4.3
- 10BrisbaneQueensland4.2
- 11BlackwaterQueensland4.0
- 12CoomeraQueensland4.0
- 13Tannum SandsQueensland3.9
- 14NarangbaQueensland3.8
- 15EmeraldQueensland3.8
- 16Mango HillQueensland3.8
- 17Logan CityQueensland3.8
- 18Sunshine CoastQueensland3.8
- 19Gold CoastQueensland3.3
- 20ToowoombaQueensland3.2
+ 1 more city, at 3.1 µg/m³
Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Sydney since 3 Apr 2024.
Cities counted each 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.