Nanjing Air Compared to Smoking 15 Packs a Day
By wchung | 05 Apr, 2026

Foul Soup: The pollution in Nanjing has reached levels never seen before.

The air quality in Nanjing has become unusually bad beginning on Sunday, June 10, 2012.

The air quality in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, has become so bad this week that experts liken breathing it for a day to smoking a carton and a half of cigarettes, according to Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily News.

For the past week Nanjing has been immersed in a yellow haze that has reduced visibility to about 1 kilometer (0.62 mile), and half that distance in some districts. On Sunday evening Nanjing’s air pollution index had soared to 478, easily the worst among China’s major cities.

The unusually heavy pollution is blamed on the widespread burning of straw, lack of wind, high humidity and low pressure, creating an inversion layer that traps pollution close to the ground. Small particulate matter are said to be at hazardous levels.

Older Nanjing residents told the newspaper Sunday that they have never seen the air so bad.

Jiangsu province is eastern China’s export-driven entrepreneurial center that rivals Guandong province in GDP.