How loud is Moradabad?
Moradabad, India’s “Brass City,” ranked second-loudest in the UNEP Frontiers 2022 survey with recorded peaks of 114 dB. Estimated daytime levels of 75–92 dB combine dense traffic with the hammering of thousands of brass workshops embedded in residential neighbourhoods.
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| Rank (of 50 cities) | #2 |
|---|---|
| Estimated daytime range | 75–92 dB |
| Estimated night range | 60–78 dB |
| vs. WHO guidelines | ≈ 31 dB above the 53 dB Lden road-noise guideline (night guideline: 45 dB) |
| Dominant sources | road traffic, horns, industry |
| Confidence | med |
Moradabad is an unusual entry among megacity names: a city of about a million in Uttar Pradesh that the UNEP Frontiers 2022 report measured at peaks of 114 dB — second only to Dhaka worldwide. The reason is industrial as much as vehicular.
Moradabad produces a large share of the world’s brass handicrafts, and the industry is organised as thousands of small workshops — hammering, grinding, and polishing metal — woven directly through residential mohallas rather than fenced into industrial estates. The result is a city where occupational and environmental noise are the same thing, all day.
India’s Noise Pollution Rules 2000 set residential limits at 55 dB by day and 45 dB at night, with silence zones around hospitals and schools; monitoring by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board routinely finds the city far above them. For workers at the anvil, levels are higher still, and hearing protection remains rare in the informal sector.
Moradabad noise: the specifics
- Second-loudest city in the UNEP Frontiers 2022 global survey, with 114 dB recorded peaks.
- Thousands of small brass workshops operate inside residential neighbourhoods, mixing industrial and street noise.
- India’s national limits — 55 dB day / 45 dB night residential — apply, with silence zones near hospitals and schools.
- Estimated 75–92 dB daytime range vs. the WHO’s 53 dB Lden guideline — roughly 31 dB over.
Ranges are estimates from our published-source corpus (UNEP Frontiers 2022, Mimi Worldwide Hearing Index, official noise maps and peer-reviewed studies) — see the methodology note on the City Sound Map. We publish ranges and confidence labels, not false point precision.
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