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 13 Jul 2025: Tuggeranong 13.6 µg/m³, Canberra 8.9 µg/m³ and Sydney 8.3 µg/m³.
- 1TuggeranongAustralian Capital Territory13.6
- 2CanberraAustralian Capital Territory8.9
- 3SydneyNew South Wales8.3
- 4PerthWestern Australia6.5
- 5MackayQueensland5.9
- 6BrisbaneQueensland5.7
- 7AyrQueensland5.6
- 8TownsvilleQueensland5.3
- 9NarangbaQueensland5.3
- 10CairnsQueensland5.2
- 11Logan CityQueensland5.2
- 12MaryboroughQueensland4.9
- 13Mango HillQueensland4.9
- 14Gold CoastQueensland4.8
- 15Sunshine CoastQueensland4.4
- 16MoranbahQueensland4.3
- 17Tannum SandsQueensland4.3
- 18GladstoneQueensland4.2
- 19CoomeraQueensland4.1
- 20Mount IsaQueensland4.0
+ 2 more cities, 3.8 µg/m³ and below
Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Blackwater since 8 Jun 2025.
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.