Physical and chemical information on zinc corrosion layer formation, evolution, morphology, and chemical makeup is organized and presented, together with information on minerals containing zinc and other crystalline structures that might be expected to be present. The chemical reactions involved in the formation of these constituents during the corrosion process are then surveyed. The pH of the aqueous surface film is found to be crucial to the corrosion process, since it controls the dissolution of the passive oxyhydroxide surface. (The outdoor pH is largely a function of atmospheric and and is low in fogs and some rains, near neutral in dew, and generally lower in winter than in summer; indoors, the surface acidity is controlled by the composition of deposited particles.) The transition from traditional winter maxima in outdoor zinc corrosion to the more recent summer and fall maxima is explained as the juxtaposition of annually‐varying rates of bisulfite oxidation by and of atmospheric concentrations. Indoors, most of the surface degradation can be attributed to adsorbed sulfate aerosol particles; the indoor corrosion rates can be constrained to negligible levels by maintaining moderate relative humidities. Zinc is the only one of the common industrial metals for which a product containing carbonate is abundant, but sulfates and chlorides appear as well. In each case, the predominant forms are the slightly soluble hydroxide mixed salts. While full quantitative analyses of atmospheric zinc corrosion are not yet possible, it is clear that the process can only be understood in the context of the anionic surface chemistry of zinc.