Blonde, blue-eyed American teenager Alexandria Mills has won the Miss World crown for 2010, defeating more than 100 other hopefuls at a glittering ceremony in southern China.
Mills, an 18-year-old from the southern US state of Kentucky, wept as outgoing Miss World Kaiane Aldorino of Gibraltar placed the tiara on her head and led her to a diamond-shaped throne.
The 1.75-metre tall beauty - a professional model listed with the Elite Models agency - waved to the cheering crowd at the 2,000-capacity Beauty Crown Theatre in the resort town of Sanya on Hainan island.
During the two-hour competition, which annually draws a global television audience of about one billion, Mills said her month spent touring China with the other 114 Miss World hopefuls had made a "big impact" on her life.
Botswana's Emma Wareus placed second and Venezuela's Adriana Vasini came third in the pageant.
The pageant got off to a colourful start with a performance by dancers and drummers from China's Li ethnic minority group, who mainly live on Hainan island, which was hosting the event for the fifth time in eight years.
Before the contestants whirled in national costume for the Dances of the World segment, viewers were treated to a video montage of the women's whirlwind tour of China - from the Great Wall to the shopping malls.
Early favourite Mariann Birkedal of Norway, listed by British bookmaker William Hill as the woman to beat ahead of Mills, finished in the top seven.
A win for Norway could have caused a stir in Beijing, where the government is furious that the Oslo-based Nobel committee awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
The event rivals the Miss Universe pageant owned by US tycoon Donald Trump, which was won by Mexico's Jimena Navarrete in August.
In 1951, Sweden's Kiki Hakansson became the first Miss World. Oscar-winning American actress Halle Berry was a finalist in 1986.
- AFP