Abstract: Study was carried out of the pollution of PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ occurring during the period from January 18 to 22, 2016 in Shijiazhuang, China. For the study, 3 monitoring posts were set up to collect PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ samples for analysis of mass concentration and chemical compositions (including carbon fractions, water soluble ions and inorganic elements), pollution characteristics and meteorological factors responsible for the pollution and further for air parcel back trajectories using HYSPLIT. Results show that mean mass concentration of PM_2.5 with the three monitoring posts reached 113, 131 and 119 μg·m^-3, separately, during the sampling period, with high mass concentrations observed in the early mornings and at noons, and coal combustion in rural farm households was also a main cause of heavy air pollution in the region of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. The highest mass concentration of organic carbon (OC) observed was 218.37 μg·m^-3, and the highest mass concentration of inorganic carbon (IC) 21.22 μg·m^-3. Total concentrations of crustal elements (Na, Ca, Mg, Al, K and Fe) varied in the range from 27.19 to 60.03 μg·m^-3 at the three posts during the period, accounting for 96.5% of the total inorganic elements, which indicate that traffic, road dust and coal combustion are the main sources of the air pollution. Meanwhile, high relative humidity and low wind speed might also accelerate formation of secondary particles and hygroscopic growth. The analysis of potential sources shows that Shijiazhuang was affected mainly by the PM_2.5 coming with the air masses from Beijing-Tianjin, meanwhile the analysis of potential source contribution function (PSCF) shows that Hebei Province was the uppermost potential source-area contributing adversely to the atmospheric quality in Shijiazhuang.