Breathing in Mongolia is Injurious to Health.

Air pollution threatens the health of 3.3 million people across 22 regions in Mongolia. The average PM2.5 level is 27.5 µg/m³—5.5× higher than the WHO guideline.

Brought to you by Amrit Sharma

Air Pollution in Mongolia

Mongolia faces significant air pollution challenges. 95% of states exceed the WHO guideline for clean air. This is putting 3.3 million across 22 states at risk.

The average PM2.5 over 2023 was 27.5µg/m³. That's 5.5 times the WHO guideline for clean air of 5µg/m³.

This is equivalent of everybody, including children, smoking about 456 cigarettes in a year.

Life Expectancy Impact

Every person in Mongolia is losing 2.2 years of their life to air pollution. This isn't just a statistic—it's grandparents who won't see their grandchildren graduate. Parents missing birthdays. Lives cut short. Breathing kills.

These stolen years come from diseases you know—COPD that makes every breath a struggle, lung cancer that turns healthy tissue deadly, heart attacks that strike without warning, strokes that change everything in an instant. Air pollution doesn't just kill. It damages your body from the inside, every single day.

Across Mongolia, 7.2M years of life hang in the balance. That's the collective future being taken from 3.3 million people—simply by breathing.

Population Exposure by Pollution Level

Distribution of population across different PM2.5 pollution levels. The WHO guideline is 5 µg/m³—only populations below this threshold are breathing safe air.

< 5 µg/m³
2.2%
72K
5-10 µg/m³
36.7%
1.2M
10-15 µg/m³
12.4%
402K
15-25 µg/m³
0%
0
25-35 µg/m³
4.3%
140K
> 35 µg/m³
44.4%
1.4M