Miss World beauty queens in China desert city
CHINA -Beauty queens from all over the planet made final preparations to compete for the Miss World title Saturday in a Chinese mining city on the edge of the Gobi desert.
A total of 116 contestants - the highest number ever - were scheduled to don their finest evening gowns and swimwear for the evening contest, which is watched annually by around a billion people around the globe.
This year it takes place on the arid and sparsely populated steppes of Inner Mongolia, where Ordos, around 700 kilometres (440 miles) from the nearest beach, makes an unlikely setting for the world's biggest beauty pageant.
Reigning Miss World Ivian Sarcos of Venezuela will hand over her crown in the futuristic Ordos stadium, which sits alongside a vast town square dedicated to the mighty Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan.
The city has grown rich over the last decade on the back of a coal mining boom that has transformed it from a sandstorm-afflicted backwater into one of the wealthiest places in China.
The boom triggered a frenzy of building in the city, but the local government has been unable to fill the vast tower blocks that have sprung up, earning it the title of China's biggest ghost town.