TOXIC: Linfen, China

Linfen has become a poster child for China’s bloodthirsty quest for industrial supremacy. Simply put, with the exception of war-torn parts of the world, the Shanxi Province city of more than 4 million people is the most hazardous place on the planet. The Blacksmith Institute study on which this article is based ranked Linfen’s pollution levels as the worst of the worst. Inhabitants choke on coal dust, water diversion has decimated once fertile land and lead and arsenic contaminates more than half of the water left. Not to mention the carbon monoxide and toxic compounds that pollute the city on a daily basis.

With no government plans to change underway, despite mountains of evidence that residents continue to grapple with unprecedented rates of lung cancer, skin lesions, pneumonia and vascular disease, the situation in Linfen borders on hopeless.