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Data

Exposure to outdoor air pollution in urban areas

What you should know about this indicator

How is this data described by its producer?

Annual mean levels of fine particulate matter (population-weighted), by location (micrograms per cubic meter)

Further information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-11-06-02.pdf

Exposure to outdoor air pollution in urban areas
Annual mean levels of fine particulate matter (population-weighted), by location (micrograms per cubic meter)
Source
World Health Organization – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
October 29, 2025
Next expected update
October 2027
Date range
2010–2019
Unit
micrograms per cubic meter

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Health Organization – WHO

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) dataset is the primary collection of data tracking progress towards the SDG indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources.

Retrieved on
October 29, 2025
Retrieved from
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization via UN SDG Indicators Database (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (accessed 2025). More information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-11-06-02.pdf.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) dataset is the primary collection of data tracking progress towards the SDG indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources.

Retrieved on
October 29, 2025
Retrieved from
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization via UN SDG Indicators Database (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (accessed 2025). More information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-11-06-02.pdf.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Exposure to outdoor air pollution in urban areas”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260513-133010/grapher/exposure-to-outdoor-air-pollution-in-urban-areas.html [online resource] (archived on May 13, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Health Organization – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Health Organization – processed by Our World in Data. “Exposure to outdoor air pollution in urban areas” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “WHO” [original data]. Retrieved May 13, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260513-133010/grapher/exposure-to-outdoor-air-pollution-in-urban-areas.html (archived on May 13, 2026).

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