These are all of the cities Amazon could choose for its $5 billion headquarters, ranked by the experts

Amazon

Amazon's map of the top 20 contenders for its second headquarters, HQ2.

• Amazon has announced a list of the 20 cities it's considering for its second headquarters.
• Amazon has promised a $5 billion investment and up to 50,000 high-paying jobs in the city it ultimately chooses.
• We combined seven different rankings to come up with a list of the cities that could be most likely to land Amazon's HQ2.

Amazon announced its shortlist of the North American cities that are still in the running for its second headquarters on Thursday. Though 238 states, cities, and regions submitted bids, only 20 metros made the final cut.

The company has promised a $5 billion investment and says HQ2 will bring 50,000 jobs, making it one of the largest corporate-civic giveaways in modern American history.

Before Amazon made its official announcement, several news outlets and analysts made their own predictions about the top contenders. Business Insider looked at seven rankings, which included ones from Moody's Analytics, Sperling's BestPlaces, Everest Group, The New York Times, CityLab, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC. We then noted how many times each city appeared on these lists and its position, giving each list equal weight.

With that, we arrived at a final ranking of Amazon's short list of cities for its HQ2.

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