The highly polluted atmosphere above Tehran has been investigated by using a polarization lidar operating at 532 nm, in-situ particulate matter suites distributed over the city, and meteorological observations. The measurement campaign is conducted from Nov. 2014 to Jan. 2016. Three typical cases are studied in detail where, the atmosphere is polluted with urban pollution, mixture of urban pollution and dust particles from local sources, and long range transported dust from the Arabian Peninsula. For these cases, vertical profiles of the lidar backscatter coefficient, extinction coefficients, particle depolarization ratio ([Formula: see text]) and mass concentrations of atmospheric aerosols (separated into dust and non-dust particles) are presented. Using the lidar recordings, variations of the planetary boundary layer height above the city are investigated along the year. During November to February, lidar profiles frequently show polluted boundary layers that are reaching up to 1 km above the ground level. The depolarization ratio ([Formula: see text]) varies between 0.04 and 0.08 in the polluted boundary layer. During the campaign, for 103 days the urban pollution was dominant, 45 recorded dust events ([Formula: see text]) were originated from the dry regions in the south of Tehran and 15 dust events ([Formula: see text]) impacted the city that were originated from the Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia.