SmogRank / Rankings

651 cities by people breathing unhealthy air, last 30 days

Every city with enough measurements in this window, worst first.

CPCB in India: no readings since 12 Oct (488 monitors). EEA and Catalonia Medi Ambient I Sostenibilitat in Spain: no readings since 13 Oct (336 monitors). Their cities show older figures or are missing from this board, not clean.

About 98.8M people in these 651 cities breathed unhealthy air on an average day over the last 30 days.

Ranked by people: each city's population times its share of unhealthy days, those with a daily mean over 35.4 µg/m³ (US AQI 101+). That is how many people living there breathed unhealthy air on an average day. Only cities measured at 2 or more places at least 3 km apart are ranked: one monitor shouldn't speak for a whole city. Population is the city itself, not its wider metro area.

  1. 1LahorePunjab, Pakistan 12.6M
  2. 2DhakaDhaka Division, Bangladesh 8.98M
  3. 3DelhiDelhi, India 8.49M
  4. 4PeshawarKhyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan 4.76M
  5. 5AhmedabadGujarat, India 4.4M
  6. 6SingaporeSingapore 3.95M
  7. 7MumbaiMaharashtra, India 3.91M
  8. 8FaisalabadPunjab, Pakistan 3.67M
  9. 9HanoiHanoi, Vietnam 3.49M
  10. 10RawalpindiPunjab, Pakistan 3.02M
  11. 11DubaiDubai, United Arab Emirates 2.65M
  12. 12KolkataWest Bengal, India 2.49M
  13. 13GujranwalaPunjab, Pakistan 2.43M
  14. 14MultanPunjab, Pakistan 2.17M
  15. 15KarachiSindh, Pakistan 1.94M
  16. 16JaipurRajasthan, India 1.87M
  17. 17LagosLagos, Nigeria 1.54M
  18. 18KampalaCentral Region, Uganda 1.46M
  19. 19Kuala LumpurKuala Lumpur, Malaysia 1.36M
  20. 20PuneMaharashtra, India 1.32M
  21. 21ChennaiTamil Nadu, India 1.28M
  22. 22LilongweCentral Region, Malawi 1M
  23. 23KanpurUttar Pradesh, India 977K
  24. 24LucknowUttar Pradesh, India 951K
  25. 25ChangchunJilin, China 949K
  26. 26NagpurMaharashtra, India 925K
  27. 27BahawalpurPunjab, Pakistan 872K
  28. 28SialkotPunjab, Pakistan 790K
  29. 29BlantyreSouthern Region, Malawi 692K
  30. 30AurangabadMaharashtra, India 685K
  31. 31MeerutUttar Pradesh, India 685K
  32. 32GurugramHaryana, India 682K
  33. 33Pimpri-ChinchwadMaharashtra, India 664K
  34. 34BengaluruKarnataka, India 653K
  35. 35FaridabadHaryana, India 643K
  36. 36BhopalMadhya Pradesh, India 622K
  37. 37DurbanKwaZulu-Natal, South Africa 576K
  38. 38JammuJammu and Kashmir, India 557K
  39. 39SantiagoSantiago Metropolitan, Chile 500K
  40. 40IslamabadIslamabad, Pakistan 481K
  41. 41HarareHarare, Zimbabwe 479K
  42. 42NashikMaharashtra, India 457K
  43. 43AgraUttar Pradesh, India 440K
  44. 44MorādābādUttar Pradesh, India 388K
  45. 45IbadanOyo State, Nigeria 365K
  46. 46VijayawadaAndhra Pradesh, India 352K
  47. 47KotaRajasthan, India 347K
  48. 48Quezon CityNational Capital Region, Philippines 308K
  49. 49GwaliorMadhya Pradesh, India 284K
  50. 50HyderabadSindh, Pakistan 265K
  51. 51NoidaUttar Pradesh, India 249K
  52. 52KathmanduBagmati Province, Nepal 249K
  53. 53DenpasarBali, Indonesia 246K
  54. 54VereenigingGauteng, South Africa 237K
  55. 55VientianeVientiane Prefecture, Laos 196K
  56. 56GandhinagarGujarat, India 191K
  57. 57DurgapurWest Bengal, India 166K
  58. 58GayaBihar, India 164K
  59. 59VaranasiUttar Pradesh, India 134K
  60. 60MzuzuNorthern Region, Malawi 134K
  61. 61RaipurChhattisgarh, India 128K
  62. 62OuagadougouCentre, Burkina Faso 110K
  63. 63BhubaneswarOdisha, India 106K
  64. 64ButwālLumbini Province, Nepal 97.5K
  65. 65BhiwadiRajasthan, India 88.8K
  66. 66JabalpurMadhya Pradesh, India 86.5K
  67. 67Indorelast full day 10 OctMadhya Pradesh, India 83.1K
  68. 68JodhpurRajasthan, India 81.2K
  69. 69Saint-LouisSaint-Louis, Senegal 74.1K
  70. 70MuzaffarpurBihar, India 68.2K
  71. 71PatnaBihar, India 64.8K
  72. 72BeirutBeirut, Lebanon 63.9K
  73. 73UbudBali, Indonesia 42.4K
  74. 74OsornoLos Lagos Region, Chile 42.1K
  75. 75ThembisaGauteng, South Africa 35.3K
  76. 76MexicaliBaja California, Mexico 34.4K
  77. 77Puerto MonttLos Lagos Region, Chile 33.9K
  78. 78EvatonGauteng, South Africa 26.9K
  79. 79PyeongtaekGyeonggi-do, South Korea 24.3K
  80. 80KaragandyKaraganda, Kazakhstan 23.7K
  81. 81ZagrebZagreb, Croatia 22.1K
  82. 82KolhāpurMaharashtra, India 22K
  83. 83TabananBali, Indonesia 20.2K
  84. 84PolokwaneLimpopo, South Africa 18.8K
  85. 85Banja LukaSrpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina 14.7K
  86. 86DalungBali, Indonesia 13.1K
  87. 87CanberraAustralian Capital Territory, Australia 12.7K
  88. 88RourkelaOdisha, India 10.9K
  89. 89MurreePunjab, Pakistan 10.3K
  90. 90KeonjhargarhOdisha, India 6.99K
  91. 91TalcaMaule Region, Chile 6.81K
  92. 92BurundayAlmaty Region, Kazakhstan 6.3K
  93. 93Otegen BatyraAlmaty Region, Kazakhstan 5.03K
  94. 94TalgharAlmaty Region, Kazakhstan 2.81K
  95. 95ArrecifeCanary Islands, Spain 2.27K
  96. 96SeonghwanChungcheongnam-do, South Korea 2.02K
  97. 97SecundaMpumalanga, South Africa 1.46K
  98. 98TocopillaAntofagasta, Chile 977
  99. 99AmandelbultLimpopo, South Africa 853
  100. 100HyderabadTelangana, India 0

What stands behind each figure: Checked at 2+ sites One reference monitor Low-cost sensors About these marks

Low-cost sensors: consumer units, counted only in cities with no government-grade monitor; they read close to reference monitors on the whole, but 15 to 25% high in humid air. How we use them.

Good0–50
Moderate51–100
Unhealthy for sensitive groups101–150
Unhealthy151–200
Very unhealthy201–300
Hazardous301+

The US EPA's Air Quality Index for PM2.5 (2024 breakpoints). Show values as: µg/m³ · US AQI · India AQI · China AQI · European AQI · UK DAQI · Canada AQHI+. About the scales

Not covered: the government monitoring networks of China, Turkey and Iran, which publish only on their own websites. We are building the reader for China's network. The networks of Turkey and Iran don't answer requests from outside their countries, so we can't read them. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.

Use this board

SmogRank, all cities ranked by people breathing unhealthy air (PM2.5), last 30 days to 14 Oct 2026, 06:00 UTC: each city's population times its share of measured days with a daily mean over 35.4 µg/m³ (only cities with 2 or more monitoring places 3 km or more apart), cities measured on 21 or more of the 30 days. Monitor data from national networks via OpenAQ and the publishers listed at smogrank.com/sources. smogrank.com/rankings?w=30d&by=people. Ranked on low-cost sensors, with no reference monitor in the city: #1 Lahore, #2 Dhaka, #4 Peshawar, #8 Faisalabad and #10 Rawalpindi. Some values from Sensor.Community, ODbL. Some readings from Vietnam's government monitors; Aurassure; Department of Environment, Nepal; RMCAB (Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente, Bogotá); Love My Air (City and County of Denver); Umhverfisstofnun (Environment Agency of Iceland), no reuse terms published.

Download top 10 by average (PNG)

You're welcome to reuse a single chart, image or figure with this citation and a link. Terms. Raw monitor readings in bulk are published by OpenAQ, under each provider's licence.

Updated 2026-10-14 06:07 UTC. Values are PM2.5 (fine particles), the median of each city's monitors, as the US AQI PM2.5 sub-index. Some low-cost readings: Sensor.Community, ODbL (data and licence). Some readings: Vietnam's government monitors; Aurassure; Department of Environment, Nepal; RMCAB (Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente, Bogotá); Love My Air (City and County of Denver); Umhverfisstofnun (Environment Agency of Iceland), no reuse terms published (why we use them).