Huanggang City in central China, is a regional site connect with the north air mass from Xiangyang and Suizhou in Hubei Province and the eastern air mass from Dabie-shan which located at the junction of Hubei and Anhui Province. To enrich the aerosol database in central China and provide reference for the control of air pollution in Huanggang City and surrounding cities in central China, totally 62 PM_2.5 samples were collected during the year 2018 for season variation (January 2018–January 2019, once a week) and 16 priority PAHs were analyzed. The annual average concentrations of PM_2.5 and PM_2.5-bound PAHs were 60.4 ± 38.6 μg m⁻³ and 7.35 ± 6.79 ng m⁻³, respectively. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) model showed that the main sources of PM_2.5-bound PAHs were vehicle emissions (56.8%), coal and biomass burning (29.5%) and petroleum sources (13.7%). PM_2.5 and PM_2.5-bound PAHs in Huanggang were mainly came from local emissions and relatively short-range transport and the high probability areas were concentrated in Hubei and Henan Province. The total incremental lifetime cancer risks (TILCR) values were ranged from 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻⁶, indicating the potential cancer risk for adults and children in Huanggang. However, ILCR_ing and ILCR_dem were four orders of magnitude higher than ILCR_inh, indicating that ingestion and dermal contact were the main exposure routes for cancer. Vehicle emission contributed the most to TILCR (70.9%), followed by coal and biomass combustion (21.8%) and petroleum sources (7.39%).