by Italy, Turkey and Croatia are among the European holiday spots at the highest level of air pollution, while the Spain Costa Blanca and Iceland are among the best air quality, according to a new study.
The global survey on air quality carried out by IQAIR shows that 126 of the 138 countries and regions with available data exceeded the annual average PM2.5 directive of the World Health Organization (µg/m3) in 2024.
PM2.5 is a fine particle with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less (a microometer is a millionth of a measuring device). For comparison, human hair has a diameter of 50 to 70 micrometers and a fine grain of sand of 90 micrometers.
IQair said: “Air pollution is still the greatest environmental threat to human health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 99 percent of the global population live in areas that do not meet the recommended guidelines of air quality.”
Let’s take a look at the holiday destinations that are best and worst to get air quality.
The countries in Europe (and the least) dirty in Europe
The Balkans region suffers from the poorest air pollution levels in Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina have the worst with an average PM2.5 measurement (25.3 µg/m3), worse than Palestine, Libya and Thailand. However, this is a significant improvement on 2020 if this number was 40.6. Second, for the poorest air quality in Europe, Northern Macedonia is followed by Serbia and Montenegro
Northern European countries can breathe more easily. Iceland (4 µg/m3) has some of the cleanest air on the planet. Estonia, Finland and Sweden are the other European countries with low concentration of fine particles. Irelands is also particularly low at 6.5.
How do our favorite holiday goals rank?
For the cleanest air, look into the Caribbean. Of the ten countries and territories with the best air quality in the world, eight are in the Caribbean. The Bahamas (2.3 µg/m3) and Bermuda (2.5) are the best of the best, while Grenada and Barbados also have very low fine particle levels.
In the most popular holidays of Great Britain, the goals with the cleanest air are the Costa Blanca and the Algarve coast, which according to the readings of air quality from the next urban settlements of Alicante (3.2 µg/m3) and Faro (3). Nicosia, Cyprus (15.2) and Athens (11) are examples of holiday spots with an above -average level of contamination.
Tallinn (4.3 µg/m3), Stockholm (5.3), Copenhagen (7.1) and Lisbon (7.4) have from Europe’s capital cities (7.4) air quality measurements with a higher standard than London (7.8).
Other cities in which they are on vacation with particularly poor air quality are Cairo (39.9 µg/m3), Dubai (33.4) and Mexico city (19.5)
Viewed by our preferred holiday destinations, France (8.1 µg/m3), Spain (8.7), Portugal (6.8) all have an average nationwide air quality assessment that resembles the 7.4 Great Britain. Greece (11.5), Cyprus (12.8), Croatia (13.8), Italy (14.3) and Turkey (15.3) are worse.
The best and worst in the world
The most dirty land in the world for fine particles in 2024 was Tchad, Africa (91.8 µg/m3), which is more than 18 -versely higher than the annual guideline of the WH22.5. This is followed by Bangladesh (78), Pakistan (73.7), the Democratic Republic of Congo (58.2) and India (50.6).
Last year, only 17 percent of global cities met the PM2.5 directive of 5 µg/m3 or less, although this was an improvement compared to 2023 if only 9 percent reached this brand.
It is interesting to look at the discrepancy across continents. In the Middle East, Southeast Asia and East Asia, not a single city got to know the WHO air quality air allowance in 2024 or less. In East Asia were the 15 most dirty cities in China (the worst were Hotan).
In North America, 29.3 percent of cities met the annual PM2.5 guidelines of the WHO. This is compared to Europe (8 percent), Africa (1 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (7.8 percent). The region with the cleanest air of all is oceania, where 56.9 percent of cities have reached the desired air quality standards.
Only twelve countries or territories in the study meet the annual PM2.5 guidelines for an annual average of 5 µg/m3 or less. These are Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Grenada, Barbados, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, the US maiden islands, French Polynesia, Bermuda and the Bahamas.
What is right now?
IQair also collects readings for live air quality in large cities around the world. At the time of writing, Medan in Indonesia (186 µg/m3), Hanoi in Vietnam (176), Dhaka in Bangladesh (172), Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (165) and Seoul (153) were the most dirty cities on earth. Everything from 151 to 20,000 in the live ranking is classified as “unhealthy”.
The clearest air were in Melbourne (4 µg/m3) and Vancouver (7). London was 52 at the time of writing, which, according to IQAIR, was classified as a “moderate” level of pollution.
How the data are compiled
The IQAIR study includes all cities that have provided annual PM2.5 data from the monitoring of air quality reasons on the ground floor, with hourly data for at least 60 percent of the year (corresponds to at least 5,256 hours of 8,760).
For the 2024 survey, IQAIR issued data from more than 40,000 air quality monitoring stations at 8,954 settlements in 138 countries. However, there were many countries and regions with inadequate data that should be included in the study. Only 24 of the 54 countries of Africa have sufficient air pollution data.
While Iraq and Chad belonged to the study this year, important omissions of Afghanistan, Iran and Oman were.
IQair says: “While the number of countries and regions with air quality monitoring has increased steadily in the past six years, there are significant gaps in the state -operated regulatory instrumentation in many parts of the world.”
This story was first published and revised and updated in March 2024.
