SmogRank / History / City race
Cities in United States, 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 United States for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 16 Jul 2025: Badger 24.0 µg/m³, Fairbanks 21.4 µg/m³ and Virginia 18.1 µg/m³.
- 1BadgerAlaska24.0
- 2FairbanksAlaska21.4
- 3VirginiaMinnesota18.1
- 4Wake ForestNorth Carolina17.9
- 5PasadenaCalifornia17.9
- 6SuperiorWisconsin16.3
- 7Elmwood ParkIllinois16.1
- 8FontanaCalifornia15.6
- 9DuluthMinnesota15.4
- 10Los AngelesCalifornia15.4
- 11GlendoraCalifornia15.1
- 12Detroit LakesMinnesota15.0
- 13OconomowocWisconsin15.0
- 14RedfordMichigan14.6
- 15West FargoNorth Dakota14.4
- 16FishersIndiana14.3
- 17McCordsvilleIndiana14.3
- 18MiddletownOhio14.3
- 19LincolnwoodIllinois14.3
- 20Santa MonicaCalifornia14.3
+ 822 more cities, 14.2 µg/m³ and below
Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Wheeling since 10 Jul 2025 and Saint Paul since 25 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 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.