SmogRank / History / City race

Cities in United Kingdom, 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.

CountriesCities
The 30 days to19 Sep 2024 That day's board

The worst cities in United Kingdom for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 19 Sep 2024: Birmingham 9.3 µg/m³, Manchester 9.2 µg/m³ and Kingston upon Hull 8.9 µg/m³.

  1. 1BirminghamEngland9.3
  2. 2ManchesterEngland9.2
  3. 3Kingston upon HullEngland8.9
  4. 4NewmarketEngland8.6
  5. 5LiverpoolEngland8.6
  6. 6BurwellEngland8.6
  7. 7LondonEngland8.5
  8. 8BelfastNorthern Ireland8.4
  9. 9LeedsEngland8.3
  10. 10SheffieldEngland8.2
  11. 11Royal Leamington SpaEngland8.0
  12. 12CardiffWales8.0
  13. 13BarnsleyEngland7.9
  14. 14WiganEngland7.7
  15. 15ChesterfieldEngland7.7
  16. 16Cheadle HulmeEngland7.7
  17. 17Stoke-on-TrentEngland7.6
  18. 18Newcastle upon TyneEngland7.6
  19. 19GraysEngland7.6
  20. 20CwmafanWales7.6

+ 44 more cities, the next at 7.6 µg/m³

Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Portsmouth since 27 Aug 2024 and Brighton since 6 Aug 2024.

30 days7 days
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 reader for China's network. Turkey's network doesn't answer requests from outside the country, so we can't read it. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.