CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Thirteen of the world's top 20 most polluted cities are in India, a new study shows.
Another four cities are in neighboring Pakistan, with one in China and Kazakhstan, leaving just one non-Asian country on the list - Chad.
The central African nation was named the country with the worst air pollution.
Besides Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan , Democratic Republic of the Congo and India are the four other most polluted countries.
IQAir, a Swiss company that tracks global air quality, on Tuesday released its 7th annual World Air Quality Report, highlighting alarming trends of the world's most polluted countries, territories, and regions in 2024.
For this year's report, data from more than 40,000 air quality monitoring stations across 8,954 locations in 138 countries were analyzed by IQAir's air quality scientists.
Out of this, 126 countries and regions exceeded the WHO annual PM2.5 guideline value of 5 µg/m3.
A key finding from the report is that only 17 percent of global cities meet WHO air pollution guideline.
Seven countries met the WHO annual average PM2.5 guideline: Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Estonia, Grenada, Iceland, and New Zealand.
IQAir looked at the concentration of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, one of the smallest but most dangerous pollutants.
India's New Delhi is the world's most polluted capital, while the eastern Indian city of Byrnihat was the most polluted metropolitan area of 2024, with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 128.2 µg/m3.
India was home to six of the nine most polluted global cities.
The region of Central and South Asia was home to the top seven most polluted cities in the world.
The most polluted major U.S. city was Los Angeles, California, which suffered the worst wildfires in U.S. history earlier this year. Ontario, also in California, was the most polluted city in the United States. Seattle, Washington, was the cleanest major city in the U.S.
'The World Air Quality Report, which compiles measurements of air pollution from around the globe, should be a rallying call for urgent and concerted international efforts to cut pollutant emissions,' says Aidan Farrow, Senior Air Quality Scientist with Greenpeace International.
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