Here are the cities Atlanta has to beat for Amazon’s second headquarters

Amazon on Thursday unveiled the top 20 finalists for its much-anticipated second headquarters.

Major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas made the cut, along with smaller cities such as Columbus, Ohio, and the Maryland suburb of Montgomery County.

» RELATED: Atlanta named to Amazon's shortlist for HQ2

The second hub, Amazon HQ2, is expected to support as many as 50,000 new tech and corporate employees and come with $5 billion in investment. Hundreds of cities have been putting big offers and incentives on the table since the search was first announced in September.

The company, based in Seattle, selected the finalists from a collection of 238 applications submitted by cities in Mexico, Canada and the United States, but it’s unclear how the shortlist was finalized.

» RELATED: AJC poll: Georgians willing to pay for Amazon headquarters

Sources told the New York Times that about a dozen people within the company, including human resource managers, real estate executives and Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos himself, were involved in the selection process.

“Thank you to all 238 communities that submitted proposals,” Holly Sullivan, an executive with Amazon Public Policy, said in a statement. “Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity. Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”

Here are the 20 finalists for Amazon HQ2:

Boston