Index of air quality in the world's major cities

(AFP PHOTO / NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY)

Daily air quality index of some of the world's major cities on December 8, using data from AirNow, CITEAIR, and the American Embassy in Beijing.

City	Average 07/12/2010	Average 08/12/2010
London (UK)	Good	NA
Madrid (Spain)	Moderate	Good
Paris (France)	Good	Good
Brussels (Belgium)	Moderate	Moderate
Berlin (Germany )	Good	Moderate
Prague (Czech Republic)	Moderate	Moderate
Zurich (Switzerland)	Good	Good
Beijing (China)	Unhealthy for sensitive groups	Unhealthy for sensitive groups
Beijing - US embassy stats	Unhealthy for sensitive groups	Good
Shanghai (China)	Moderate	Moderate
Hong Kong (China)	Moderate	Moderate
Brunei (Brunei)	NA	Good
New York (USA)	Good	Good
San Francisco (USA)	Good	Good
Mexico City (Mexico )	Moderate	Moderate
Montreal (Canada)	Good	Good
Toronto (Canada)	Good	Good
New Delhi (India)	Unhealthy for sensitive groups	Very unhealthy
Sydney (Australia)	Good	Good

The Air Quality Index (AQI) or Air Pollution Index (API) measures the parts of pollutant in a specified volume of air. The lower the AQI the fewer particles of pollution are in the air. For a more detailed explanation see http://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=aqibasics.aqi.

All results are color-coded following the American AQI standard shown below. For all countries outside of Europe, the US and Canada, that region's definition of AQI terms has been accepted.

Legend 

Air Quality
Good
Moderate
Unhealthy for sensitive groups
Unhealthy
Very Unhealthy
Hazardous

Data: Data relating to Europe, the US and Canada is taken from CITEAIR - Common Information to European Air ( http://www.airnow.gov / http://www.airqualitynow.eu); data concerning China is taken from both official Chinese government sources and the US Embassy's automated air index Twitter account. For all countries the data displayed falls within either that country's definition of the level of air quality or the international AQI index. Data for all European, US and Canadian cities refers to background, not roadside, levels of air quality.

All data was collected at 11:00am GMT on December 8.

http://www.airqualitynow.eu
http://www.airnow.gov