Pakistan world’s most polluted country in 2025: Report

Fine particulates in Pakistan’s air highest in the world last year, exceeding WHO guidelines by up to 13 times, monitoring firm says.Pakistan was the world’s smoggiest country in 2025 with concentrations of hazardous fine particles known as PM2.5 up to 13 times higher than the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recommended level, a report finds.In its annual report published on Tuesday, IQAir, a Swiss air quality monitoring firm, said only 13 countries and territories managed to keep their average fine particulate levels below the WHO guideline, but that number was up from seven in 2024.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3At least 42 people killed in days of floods across Kenyalist 2 of 3No snow, no ski season: Greenland’s warmest January shuts Nuuk resortlist 3 of 3Two killed as tornadoes sweep across US Midwest in latest extreme weatherend of listIQAir sourced data from 9,446 cities in 143 countries, regions and territories. Overall, 130 of 143 monitored countries and territories failed to meet the WHO standard.That standard is based on a measurement of fine particulate matter in the air of 2.5 microns or less in diameter. The WHO standard for healthy air quality is an average PM2.5 of no more than 5 microgrammes per cubic metre. Pakistan’s PM2.5 level was 67.3 microgrammes.Pakistan’s average PM2.5 concentration in 2024 was 73.7 microgrammes.PM2.5 is considered a major contributor to premature births while prolonged exposure has also been linked to higher likelihoods of neurodegenerative conditions, including dementia, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.Bangladesh and Tajikistan ranked second and third on IQAir’s list of the most polluted countries while Chad, statistically the smoggiest country in 2024, was in fourth place in 2025.Open pit mining causes a large amount of fine particulate matter to be emitted into the air [File: Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]However, the apparent decline in PM2.5 levels there is likely the result of gaps in the data.