The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 and the US Virgin Islands. The winner of the national pageant is awarded the title of "Miss America" for one year.

The pageant originated as a beauty contest

Beauty contest

A beauty pageant or beauty contest, is a competition that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria...

 in 1921, but now prefers to avoid this term since Swimsuit and Evening Wear comprise 35 percent of the overall score used to judge contestants.