Air quality index reveals world's most polluted city

Air quality monitoring

Air quality index reveals world's most polluted city

17 Dec, 2010

Published over 15 years ago. See the latest and most current information on Air quality monitoring.

An air quality index has revealed that the world's most polluted city is New Delhi in India.

The Independent used data taken from AirNow, CITEAIR and the American Embassy in Beijing to come to this conclusion.

It reported that on both December 15th and 16th 2010, the city was found to have an 'unhealthy' amount of air pollutants in the atmosphere.

The findings also showed that on December 16th, Beijing had poor air quality, with levels that could potential be harmful to humans.

Mexico City, while it scored better results than the other two metropolises, was found to have pollution that is 'unhealthy for sensitive groups', such as people with respiratory diseases.

According to Environmental Protection UK, there are many health problems caused by contaminants in the air and periods of exceptionally high pollution levels have been found to trigger asthma attacks, as well as other allergic reactions.

In the results, London, on the other hand, scored positively and had 'good' air quality on both days earlier this week.

Posted by Claire Manning

IET 36.2 Mar/Apr 2026

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