The pollution season of 2019-20 has seen quite a few episodes of hazardous pollution levels across northern, eastern and western states of India. With this, Indian cities have continued to dominate the list of world's most polluted cities by occupying 70% of slots in the top 30 for the year 2019.
Ghaziabad world's most polluted city
According to the World Air Quality Report 2019 compiled by IQAir AirVisual, a global pollution data portal, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh bagged the rather undesirable title as the world's most polluted city in 2019. Hotan in China was the second most polluted. Delhi, the poster city of pollution, stood at sixth position for 2019. In total, 21 out of 30 world's most polluted cities of 2019 are from India.
Another highlight in the 2019 report is that all six most polluted cities of India that feature in the top 10 are from the National Capital Region. Noida, Gurugram, Greater Noida and Bandhwari are the other cities in the top 10 list. Among capital cities, Delhi remains the most polluted capital city in the world, with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 98.6 parts per million (ppm) in 2019.
In terms of most polluted cities, however, Indian and Chinese cities occupy almost all the spots. Among the top 200 most polluted cities, 178 are from these two countries comprising nearly 90% of the list. All 30 most polluted cities are from the Asian continent.
