SmogRank / Rankings

622 cities by people breathing unhealthy air, this year

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 106M people in these 622 cities breathed unhealthy air on an average day so far this year.

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 11.2M
  2. 2DelhiDelhi, India 8.57M
  3. 3DhakaDhaka Division, Bangladesh 8.42M
  4. 4LagosLagos, Nigeria 5.7M
  5. 5PeshawarKhyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan 3.59M
  6. 6KarachiSindh, Pakistan 3.58M
  7. 7FaisalabadPunjab, Pakistan 3.48M
  8. 8AhmedabadGujarat, India 3.2M
  9. 9HanoiHanoi, Vietnam 3.17M
  10. 10MumbaiMaharashtra, India 2.84M
  11. 11BengaluruKarnataka, India 2.73M
  12. 12HyderabadTelangana, India 2.28M
  13. 13ChangchunJilin, China 2.23M
  14. 14JaipurRajasthan, India 2.17M
  15. 15GujranwalaPunjab, Pakistan 2.11M
  16. 16RawalpindiPunjab, Pakistan 1.8M
  17. 17DubaiDubai, United Arab Emirates 1.75M
  18. 18KampalaCentral Region, Uganda 1.57M
  19. 19SantiagoSantiago Metropolitan, Chile 1.56M
  20. 20MultanPunjab, Pakistan 1.52M
  21. 21LucknowUttar Pradesh, India 1.47M
  22. 22KanpurUttar Pradesh, India 1.37M
  23. 23KolkataWest Bengal, India 1.36M
  24. 24FaridabadHaryana, India 1.26M
  25. 25NagpurMaharashtra, India 1.2M
  26. 26PuneMaharashtra, India 1.05M
  27. 27SeoulSeoul, South Korea 1.03M
  28. 28ChennaiTamil Nadu, India 922K
  29. 29PatnaBihar, India 865K
  30. 30GurugramHaryana, India 827K
  31. 31MeerutUttar Pradesh, India 803K
  32. 32KathmanduBagmati Province, Nepal 739K
  33. 33LilongweCentral Region, Malawi 714K
  34. 34Indorelast full day 10 OctMadhya Pradesh, India 683K
  35. 35VijayawadaAndhra Pradesh, India 681K
  36. 36Quezon CityNational Capital Region, Philippines 679K
  37. 37AgraUttar Pradesh, India 667K
  38. 38SialkotPunjab, Pakistan 663K
  39. 39Pimpri-ChinchwadMaharashtra, India 610K
  40. 40HyderabadSindh, Pakistan 563K
  41. 41BahawalpurPunjab, Pakistan 522K
  42. 42BhopalMadhya Pradesh, India 520K
  43. 43SingaporeSingapore 513K
  44. 44NashikMaharashtra, India 488K
  45. 45GwaliorMadhya Pradesh, India 471K
  46. 46JammuJammu and Kashmir, India 439K
  47. 47AurangabadMaharashtra, India 389K
  48. 48BangkokBangkok, Thailand 376K
  49. 49KotaRajasthan, India 364K
  50. 50VientianeVientiane Prefecture, Laos 315K
  51. 51MorādābādUttar Pradesh, India 313K
  52. 52IncheonIncheon, South Korea 307K
  53. 53QuettaBalochistan, Pakistan 303K
  54. 54IslamabadIslamabad, Pakistan 274K
  55. 55GuwahatiAssam, India 272K
  56. 56JabalpurMadhya Pradesh, India 268K
  57. 57BlantyreSouthern Region, Malawi 250K
  58. 58NoidaUttar Pradesh, India 248K
  59. 59GayaBihar, India 237K
  60. 60VaranasiUttar Pradesh, India 232K
  61. 61BhubaneswarOdisha, India 224K
  62. 62MuzaffarpurBihar, India 204K
  63. 63JodhpurRajasthan, India 194K
  64. 64RaipurChhattisgarh, India 192K
  65. 65Milanlast full day 11 OctLombardy, Italy 176K
  66. 66Mexico CityMexico City, Mexico 176K
  67. 67DurgapurWest Bengal, India 174K
  68. 68RourkelaOdisha, India 150K
  69. 69PrayagrajUttar Pradesh, India 147K
  70. 70Berlinlast full day 11 OctState of Berlin, Germany 140K
  71. 71DaeguDaegu, South Korea 132K
  72. 72SuwonGyeonggi-do, South Korea 126K
  73. 73ZagrebZagreb, Croatia 125K
  74. 74New York Citylast full day 11 OctNew York, United States 124K
  75. 75BusanBusan, South Korea 115K
  76. 76HarareHarare, Zimbabwe 113K
  77. 77WarsawMazovia, Poland 101K
  78. 78GandhinagarGujarat, India 96.8K
  79. 79KolhāpurMaharashtra, India 95.7K
  80. 80BhiwadiRajasthan, India 95K
  81. 81AccraGreater Accra, Ghana 94.2K
  82. 82KrakówLesser Poland, Poland 94.2K
  83. 83TlaquepaqueJalisco, Mexico 91.1K
  84. 84Goyang-siGyeonggi-do, South Korea 90K
  85. 85AguascalientesAguascalientes, Mexico 87.1K
  86. 86Bucheon-siGyeonggi-do, South Korea 86.6K
  87. 87DaejeonDaejeon, South Korea 81.8K
  88. 88TemucoAraucania, Chile 79.1K
  89. 89Hamburglast full day 10 OctHamburg, Germany 77.5K
  90. 90Seongnam-siGyeonggi-do, South Korea 73.8K
  91. 91Hwaseong-siGyeonggi-do, South Korea 73K
  92. 92BelgradeCentral Serbia, Serbia 71.3K
  93. 93Puerto MonttLos Lagos Region, Chile 69.7K
  94. 94GuadalajaraJalisco, Mexico 68.8K
  95. 95WrocławLower Silesia, Poland 65.8K
  96. 96OsornoLos Lagos Region, Chile 65.7K
  97. 97GwangjuGwangju, South Korea 64.6K
  98. 98Cheongju-siNorth Chungcheong, South Korea 64.1K
  99. 99Ciudad NezahualcoyotlMéxico, Mexico 63.9K
  100. 100Banja LukaSrpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina 63.6K

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), this year 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 70% or more of the days since 1 January (at least 14). Monitor data from national networks via OpenAQ and the publishers listed at smogrank.com/sources. smogrank.com/rankings?w=year&by=people. Ranked on low-cost sensors, with no reference monitor in the city: #1 Lahore, #3 Dhaka, #4 Lagos, #5 Peshawar, #6 Karachi and #7 Faisalabad. Some values from Sensor.Community, ODbL. Some readings from Aurassure; Vietnam's government monitors; Department of Environment, Nepal; RMCAB (Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente, Bogotá); 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: Aurassure; Vietnam's government monitors; Department of Environment, Nepal; RMCAB (Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente, Bogotá); Umhverfisstofnun (Environment Agency of Iceland), no reuse terms published (why we use them).