SHENZHEN ranks 5th out of 169 Chinese cities for air quality in the first half of 2018, according to a list released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Sunday, Xinhua reported.

The five cities with the best air quality from January to June were Haikou, Huangshan, Zhuhai, Lishui and Shenzhen. The five cities that recorded the worst air quality were Handan, Xingtai, Taiyuan, Jincheng and Tangshan, which are mostly in Hebei and Shanxi provinces.

For the first time, the ministry compared the air quality in 169 cities, rather than just the 74 major cities previously analyzed, based on a scheme to improve air quality initiated by the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

The ministry will, starting from July, release two lists on a monthly basis, with one list showing the 20 cities with the best air quality and the other listing the 20 cities with the poorest air quality.

Another two lists will be released every six months noting improvements in air quality. For instance, for the first half of 2018, cities like Hengshui, Baoding, Yinchuan, Langfang and Fuyang were listed as the top 20 cities for air quality improvement, while Changzhou, Xining, Jiaxing, Xinyang and Tongchuan were among the 20 cities that showed unsatisfactory improvement.

Nationwide, the number of days with good-quality air in all 338 cities accounted for 77.2 percent of the total from January to June, an increase of 1.2 percent over the same period last year.

In addition, the concentration indexes of PM2.5, PM10, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, had decreased compared to the first six months of last year, while ozone concentration showed a 2.6-percent increase.

(Zhang Qian)