Air Pollution (PM2.5) by country
Mean annual fine particulate matter concentration.
Global trend
Mean stress score across all countries for which data is available, over the last 12 months.
Where the pressure is concentrated
The five most-affected and five least-affected countries on this indicator right now.
Most affected
- 1India53.3 µg/m³88
- 2UAE38.0 µg/m³60
- 3Turkey27.4 µg/m³41
- 4South Africa24.1 µg/m³35
- 5Poland22.4 µg/m³32
Least affected
- 1Sweden5.60 µg/m³1
- 2New Zealand6.00 µg/m³2
- 3Norway6.00 µg/m³2
- 4Australia7.10 µg/m³4
- 5Canada7.30 µg/m³4
Full ranking
All 25 tracked countries, ordered from most to least affected. Click any country to see its full composite breakdown.
| # | Country | Raw value | Stress score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | India | 53.3 µg/m³ | 87.8 | 2024-12-31 |
| 2 | UAE | 38.0 µg/m³ | 60.0 | 2024-12-31 |
| 3 | Turkey | 27.4 µg/m³ | 40.7 | 2024-12-31 |
| 4 | South Africa | 24.1 µg/m³ | 34.7 | 2024-12-31 |
| 5 | Poland | 22.4 µg/m³ | 31.6 | 2024-12-31 |
| 6 | Mexico | 20.7 µg/m³ | 28.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 7 | South Korea | 18.5 µg/m³ | 24.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 8 | Italy | 16.8 µg/m³ | 21.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 9 | Israel | 16.4 µg/m³ | 20.7 | 2024-12-31 |
| 10 | Argentina | 14.2 µg/m³ | 16.7 | 2024-12-31 |
| 11 | Brazil | 14.0 µg/m³ | 16.4 | 2024-12-31 |
| 12 | France | 11.5 µg/m³ | 11.8 | 2024-12-31 |
| 13 | Netherlands | 11.4 µg/m³ | 11.6 | 2024-12-31 |
| 14 | Germany | 11.2 µg/m³ | 11.3 | 2024-12-31 |
| 15 | Singapore | 11.0 µg/m³ | 10.9 | 2024-12-31 |
| 16 | Spain | 9.70 µg/m³ | 8.5 | 2024-12-31 |
| 17 | United Kingdom | 9.60 µg/m³ | 8.4 | 2024-12-31 |
| 18 | Japan | 9.50 µg/m³ | 8.2 | 2024-12-31 |
| 19 | Switzerland | 9.20 µg/m³ | 7.6 | 2024-12-31 |
| 20 | United States | 8.40 µg/m³ | 6.2 | 2024-12-31 |
| 21 | Canada | 7.30 µg/m³ | 4.2 | 2024-12-31 |
| 22 | Australia | 7.10 µg/m³ | 3.8 | 2024-12-31 |
| 23 | Norway | 6.00 µg/m³ | 1.8 | 2024-12-31 |
| 24 | New Zealand | 6.00 µg/m³ | 1.8 | 2024-12-31 |
| 25 | Sweden | 5.60 µg/m³ | 1.1 | 2024-12-31 |
Why it matters
Air Pollution (PM2.5) is a contributing indicator to the Environmental meta-index, one of the five dimensions of The Human Index composite. Higher raw value = more stress.
Movements in this indicator are tracked daily and feed into every country's composite score on the next cron cycle.
Source & methodology
Raw values are normalized to a 0–100 stress scale per the bounds documented in the codebase. See methodology for the full normalization and band-threshold derivation.