Country comparison · 238 cities measured
Chile vs Japan Air quality index (AQI) and deforestation
Japan has cleaner air than Chile right now: its cities average AQI 51 against 52.
Chile has lost more forest since 2001. Japan has more tree cover in its cities.
Updated . Lower is better on the US EPA index: 0–50 is Good, above 300 is Hazardous. Measured by Airleaf.
Chile52Japan51
Head to head
Chile vs Japan at a glance
Japan is ahead on 4 of 5 measures, and Chile on 0. The better figure in each row is marked.
| Chile | Japan | |
|---|---|---|
| Average air qualityUS AQI, all measured cities. | 52 | 51 (better) |
| Cities over AQI 100Not fine for sensitive groups. | 0% | 0% |
| Forest lost since 2001The whole country. | 2.43 million ha | 1.02 million ha (better) |
| Share of its forest lostOf what it had in 2000. | 14% | 3.9% (better) |
| Average tree coverAcross its measured cities. | 13.0% | 16.4% (better) |
Air quality today
Is Japan cleaner than Chile?
On air quality, yes, right now. Japan has cleaner air than Chile right now: its cities average AQI 51 against 52.
0% of the measured cities in Chile are over AQI 100 today, the point where the air stops being fine for sensitive groups, against 0% in Japan.
How each country's cities split across the air quality bands
Chile
- Good13 (42%)
- Moderate18 (58%)
Japan
- Good79 (38%)
- Moderate128 (62%)
Every measured city, including model estimates where no ground station is near.
Against everywhere else
How do Chile and Japan compare with other countries?
Right now the cities of Chile average cleaner air than 52% of the 171 countries Airleaf has enough cities to average, and those of Japan than 55%.
Cleaner air than…
- Chile
- Beats 52%
- Japan
- Beats 55%
More tree cover than…
- Chile
- Beats 25%
- Japan
- Beats 34%
Deforestation · 2001–2025
Which country has lost more forest, Chile or Japan?
Chile has lost more: about 2.43 million ha of forest from 2001 to 2025, against 1.02 million ha in Japan, or 2.4 times as much. 96,100 ha of Chile's was cleared for good, for farms, mines or towns; the rest burned, was logged or can grow back.
The whole country, from the yearly satellite maps of forest loss: unlike the city averages above, this counts every forest, not just the land around cities.
Worst year: 2017, with 214,000 ha lost.
Worst year: 2016, with 54,800 ha lost.
| Chile | Japan | |
|---|---|---|
| Forest lost since 2001Cleared, burned or logged. | 2.43 million ha | 1.02 million ha (better) |
| Share of its forestOf what it had in 2000. | 14% | 3.9% (better) |
| Cleared for goodTurned into farms, mines or towns. | 96,100 ha (better) | 108,000 ha |
| Recent trend2021–2025 against the five years before. | Slowing down | Holding steady |
| Main known cause | Logging (82%) | Logging (87%) |
Trees
Which country has more tree cover, Chile or Japan?
Japan does: its measured cities average 16.4% tree cover against 13.0%, a gap of 3.4 percentage points.
| Chile | Japan | |
|---|---|---|
| Trees standingSummed across measured cities. | 1.2M | 10.2M (better) |
| Cities below their targetShort of the canopy target. | 94% | 82% (better) |
| Trees still neededTo reach those targets. | 1.5M (better) | 9.6M |
Behind the averages
The cities behind Chile and Japan
An average says nothing about how far apart the best and worst places are. These are the measured cities at each end.
Reading these numbers
What a country average is, and is not
It is a mean of cities
Not a national statistic. Each figure is the average across the cities Airleaf has measured: 31 in Chile and 207 in Japan, each read over the same 2 km radius, on the US EPA index. Rural land and unmeasured towns are not in it.
Coverage shapes the number
A country measured mostly in its capital reads differently from one measured across dozens of towns. Japan rests on 207 cities against 31, so its average is the steadier of the two. Forest figures come from the University of Maryland's Global Forest Change maps.
Frequently asked
Chile vs Japan: your questions answered
Is Japan cleaner than Chile?
On air quality, yes, right now: Japan's cities average AQI 51 against 52 on the US EPA index. These are live readings averaged across cities, so the gap moves with the weather.
Which country has lost more forest, Chile or Japan?
Chile has lost more: about 2.43 million ha of forest from 2001 to 2025, against 1.02 million ha in Japan, or 2.4 times as much. 96,100 ha of Chile's was cleared for good, for farms, mines or towns; the rest burned, was logged or can grow back.
Which country has more tree cover, Chile or Japan?
Japan does: its measured cities average 16.4% tree cover against 13.0%, a gap of 3.4 percentage points.
How many cities are the Chile and Japan figures based on?
31 measured cities in Chile and 207 in Japan. Every one was read the same way, so the two averages are directly comparable, but a country with more measured cities has the more settled figure.
Does this cover the whole of Chile and Japan?
The air and tree figures are not: they are the cities Airleaf has measured, each over the same 2 km radius, so treat them as a comparison of urban air and urban tree cover. The forest figures are: they count every forest in the country.
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