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The 10 Countries With the World's Dirtiest Air |
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IQAir's 2025 report, out in March, measured PM2.5 in 9,446 cities across 143 countries. The dirtiest air on Earth isn't in China. It's in Pakistan — 67 micrograms per cubic meter, thirteen times the level the WHO calls safe. |
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Source: IQAir 2025 World Air Quality Report (released March 24, 2026). Annual average PM2.5, µg/m³. WHO guideline: 5 µg/m³. |
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| What's Surprising |
Pakistan tops the list at 67.3 micrograms. That's more than double China's 29.6 — the country most people still picture when they think of smog. China now sits 20th, and keeps improving.
India dropped out of the top five for the first time in eight years. Its air still averages 48.9 micrograms, nearly ten times the WHO limit, but it's falling. The dirtiest air isn't only South Asian: Chad, DR Congo, Kuwait, and Egypt all rank in the top ten.
Loni, near Delhi, was the single most polluted city on Earth at 112.5 micrograms — twenty-two times the limit. The cleanest city, Nieuwoudtville in South Africa, breathed 1.0.
| What's Not Surprising |
South and Central Asia own the top of the table. Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Nepal — near the top year after year. The drivers don't change: crop burning, coal, traffic, dust, and mountains that trap the smoke.
The clean end is rich and remote. Island territories and the Nordics fill the bottom. Only 13 of 143 countries met the WHO limit of 5. The other 130 — 91% — did not. The gap in the air tracks the gap in income.
The rich world isn't clean, just cleaner. US air rose to 7.3 on wildfire smoke, and Canada ranked as North America's most polluted country for only the second time. Climate change is now its own source of pollution.
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67.3 Pakistan's average PM2.5, in micrograms per cubic meter. More than thirteen times the WHO limit, and the worst of any country. |
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13 of 143 Countries that met the WHO limit of 5 micrograms. The other 130 breathed dirtier air all year. |
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112.5 Loni, India: the most polluted city on Earth, at twenty-two times the WHO limit. |
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37× How much dirtier Pakistan's air is than French Polynesia's, the cleanest on record at 1.8. |
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7.3 The USA's average, pushed up by wildfire smoke. Nine times cleaner than Pakistan, still above the WHO limit. |
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IQAir's next report lands in March 2027. Watch whether India holds below 50 micrograms, and whether Pakistan and Bangladesh, locked at the top, finally move. Watch wildfire smoke in North America and Europe — it's turning clean-air countries dirty. And watch the data itself: the US ended its embassy air monitoring in March 2025, leaving new gaps. We'll be watching. |
