Beijing ranks ninth among China's top 10 polluted cities
China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection released on Thursday a list of the top 10 most heavily polluted cities in the country for the month of January, with Beijing coming in at ninth.
The list also includes Xingtai, Shijiazhuang, Baoding, Handan, Lanfang, Hengshui, Jinan, Tangshan and Zhengzhou.
Seven of the cities listed were in Hebei province - a major centre for China's steel industry - with Xingtai listed as the most polluted.
The 10 were pulled from an analysis of 74 mainland cities using the “newest air quality, monitoring and evaluation standards,” said MEP vice-minister Wu Xiaoqing at a meeting of the National Environmental Advisory and the Ministry of Environmental Protection Science and Technology committees.
Only in Haikou, Fuzhou, Zhoushan, Xiamen, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, Shenzehn, Kunming, Lhasa and Zhuhai was the air quality recorded better than the previous month.
