Abstract: The Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone is one of the seven trans-provincial economic regions that China is constructing and it is also a key region for atmospheric pollution control and a major shipping development region in northern China. With the continuous reduction of land-based pollutant emissions, the atmospheric pollutants from ships in the sea area around the Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone have attracted increasingly attention nationwide. In order to analyze the emission characteristics of atmospheric pollutants from ships in the sea area around the Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) based dynamic method was used to calculate the ship's atmospheric pollutant emission inventory with the AIS data and the domestic and foreign ship registration data. The results show that the emissions of SO_x, NO_x, PM₁₀, HC and CO from ships in the sea area around the Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone in 2017 were 261, 800, 411, 200, 34, 800, 11, 300 and 26, 600 tons, respectively, which were mainly produced under low-speed cruising, cruising and mooring. The emissions under low-speed cruising were large, and the contributions of SO_x, NO_x, PM₁₀, HC and CO were 45.56%, 48.79%, 46.55%, 48.68% and 47.00%, respectively. The emissions of SO_x, NO_x, PM₁₀, HC and CO under mooring were 50, 600, 68, 600, 6, 700, 1, 900 and 5, 100 tons, respectively. Therefore, promoting the usage of shore power by berthing ships can effectively reduce atmospheric pollution. Using fuel oil with sulfur content (in mass fraction) of 0.5% and 0.1% can reduce SO_x emissions by 81.47% and 96.29%, respectively, therefore, switching to low-sulfur oil has a significant effect on SO_x reduction. The research shows that prohibiting the usage of high-sulfur oil during navigation, switching to low-sulfur oil before berthing, increasing the shore power coverage and usage are effective measures to reduce atmospheric pollutants from ships in the sea area around the Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone.