One could argue that pollution is endemic across China, but some cities are better than others. To rank them properly, the Ministry of Environment released statistics that put cities in their proper order. The TL;DR version is this: the south is cleaner than the north.
Seven of the worst cities are in Hebei Province, with six within the area reserved for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei supercity.
- Baoding, Hebei
- Xingtai, Hebei
- Shijiahuang, Hebei
- Tangshan, Hebei
- Handan, Hebei
- Hengshui, Hebei
- Jinan, Shandong
- Langfang, Hebei
- Zhengzhou, Henan
- Tianjin Municipality
And here’s the list of the cities with the best air quality in 2014. Most of these are located in the south of China, with the majority belonging to the PRD in Guangdong and the rest in the far west.
- Haikou, Hainan
- Zhoushan, Zhejiang
- Lhasa, Tibet
- Shenzhen, Guangdong
- Zhuhai, Guangdong
- Huizhou, Guangdong
- Fuzhou, Fujian
- Xiamen, Fujian
- Kunming, Yunnan
- Zhongshan, Guangdong
Of the 74 cities on the list, 13 in the Beijing/Tianjin/Hebei area only met environmental standards for air quality on 156 days in 2014, 85 fewer days than the national average.
As you can see, though, the Pearl River Delta did very well. The nine PRD cities ranked on the list were able to meet environmental standards for air quality for 298 days in 2014, exceeding the national average by 57 days. As well, PRD cities only experienced days of severe air pollution last year at the miniscule ratio of 0.4 percent.
Although these two lists shows a clear geographic divide, overall results show a slight improvement for the entire country. The average of all ranked Chinese cities were able to meet environmental standards for 241 days last year, a six percent rise over 2013. As well, the country experience few severe air pollution days on average, dropping three percentage points to six percent.
Photo: China Daily
