Not only in Beijing, heavy smog has enveloped a large swathe of East and Central China as well, causing highway closures and flight delays in several provinces. Areas including Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Sichuan provinces are all heavily polluted. The Central Meteorological Bureau has brought the fog level from blue to yellow.

In Hefei, in east China’s Anhui Province, five of the ten air quality monitoring stations have reported a "heavily polluted level" of air quality. In Guilin, a city in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, visibility has been reduced to less than 500 meters. Meanwhile, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province has been shrouded in thick smog for a week. The local meteorological authority plans to conduct artificial rainfall based on the air conditions.