Abstract： To study the pollution characteristics of atmospheric particulates in east suburban area of Nanjing, the atmospheric particulates were sampled in east suburban area of Nanjing during the period from 2013 to 2014 by using an eight-class Anderson size distribution sampler to investigate their size distribution characteristics. The pollution levels of gaseous pollutants and their correlation with the sampled particulates were analyzed by employing the atmosphere monitoring data. The results show that most of the atmospheric particulates in Nanjing are in the size range from greater than 0.43 to 2.10 μm which contribute highly to the mass concentrations. The pollution in December is very serious， and the primary pollutant is the fine particulate matter PM_2.5. The meteorological factors, such as temperature, rainfall, wind speed and other meteorological factors, have negative effect on the concentration of particles. The gaseous pollutants of SO₂ and NO₂ have much more positive effect on the particle concentrations in haze days than in clean days. The particle concentrations are more affected by the concentration of NO₂ than that of SO₂.

Keywords: atmospheric particulate; fine particulate matter PM_2.5; multiple linear regression; pollution characteristic