In this paper, we present long term observations of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide ( NO2 ) and formaldehyde ( HCHO) in Nanjing using a Multi-AXis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy ( MAX-DOAS ) instrument. Ground based MAX-DOAS measurements were performed from April 2013 to February 2017. The MAX-DOAS measurements of NO2 and HCHO vertical column densities ( VCDs) are used to validate OMI satellite observations over Nanjing. The comparison shows that the OMI observations of NO2 correlate well with the MAX-DOAS data with Pearson correlation coefficient ( R ) of 0. 91. The comparison result of MAX-DOAS and OMI observations of HCHO VCD shows a good agreement with R of 0.75 and the slope of the regression line is 0.99. The age weighted backward propagation approach is applied to the MAX-DOAS measurements of NO2 and HCHO to reconstruct the spatial distribution of NO2 and HCHO over the Yangtze River Delta during summer and winter time. The reconstructed NO2 fields show a distinct agreement with OMI satellite observations. However, due to the short atmospheric lifetime of HCHO, the backward propagated HCHO data does not show a strong spatial correlation with the OMI HCHO observations. The result shows the MAX-DOAS measurements are sensitive to the air pollution transportation in the Yangtze River Delta, indicating the air quality in Nanjing is significantly influenced by regional transportation of air pollutants.