People who want to live in a Chinese city with acceptable air quality can try the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, the island city of Haikou, the coastal town of Zhoushan or the Pearl River Delta city of Huizhou.

That's it.

No other major population center in the country makes the cut, according to a report by China’s environment ministry on air pollution in the first half of 2013.

Levels of airborne PM2.5—particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter—measured on average 76 micrograms per cubic meter across 74 large urban areas in China from January through the end of June, the ministry said. That’s more than seven times the World Health Organization ‘s recommended exposure of less than 10 micrograms per cubic meter over the course of a year.