Along with the extensive economic development and rapid urbanization process in China,huge amounts of fossil fuel consumption and intensive industrial activities have caused substantial release of heavy metals into the atmosphere,which have received worldwide concerns due to their adverse effects on eco-environment and public health.An accurate and complete emission inventory will benefit both modeler community and policymakers in assessing the current status of environmental contaminations,identifying major source contributors and spatial distribution characteristics,as well as understanding the contribution of the atmospheric pathway to the contamination of terrestrial and aquatic environments.In this study,a comprehensive atmospheric emission inventory of typical 12 types of heavy metals and metalloids in China for the period of 1980-2010 has been established,including mercury(Hg),arsenic(As),lead(Pb),cadmium(Cd),chromium(Cr),nickel(Ni),Antimony(Sb),selenium(Se),Copper(Cu),Zinc(Zn),Cobalt(Co)and Manganese(Mn),which covers major anthropogenic sources in the Chinese mainland and a bottom–up approach is adopted to compile the inventory for the sources where possible.Coal combustion and nonferrous metal production are demonstrated to rank as the top two source categories.Further,provincial-level emissions classified by varied source categories are spatially allocated into gridded cells with a high resolution of 0.5?×0.5?,and the majority of anthropogenic atmospheric emissions of these toxic elements are found to be highly distributed among the regions of costal eastern and southwestern China,which can be partly explained by the rapid growing demands for fossil energy and the increasing industrial production activities in these regions.Finally,some integrated control policies are proposed in order to address the contamination problems associated with these heavy metals and metalloids.We believe that this comprehensive emission inventory will benefit for better understanding of the historical and current situation of these hazardous trace elements emissions,and help to promulgate more effective ways for preventing the environmental pollution and poisoning accidents by the policymakers and relevant researchers.