A new study into global air quality by the independent website HouseFresh has found that Kazakhstan is home to some of the world’s cleanest towns. The report also notes that one Kazakh city is also among the most polluted.
Using data from IQAir’s 2024 research, HouseFresh examined the average PM2.5 level – the number of small particles in the air – for over 8,800 towns with a population over 10,000. It found that the world’s most polluted town is Byrnihat in India, with a PM2.5 level of 128.2 particles per cubic meter (µg/m³). The cleanest air globally is in the Kazakh town of Shu.
Shu, a rail freight hub in the country’s southeastern Zhambyl region, close to the border with Kyrgyzstan, had an average PM2 level of 1.5 µg/m³ in 2024.
Kazakhstan is in fact home to the three cleanest towns in Asia, with the next places after Shu being Zhezkazgan in the central Ulytau region (2.3 µg/m³), and the southwestern town of Beyneu, outside Mangystau (3.4 µg/m³).
Read my article Asia’s Top Three Towns for Air Quality All in Kazakhstan, Finds New Study in The Times of Central Asia (23 September 2025).
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Jonathan Campion is a writer, journalist, editor and linguist, working in the Eurasia region. Read about his work here, and contact him here.
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