Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday that that it narrowed its choices to 20 locations from the 238 proposals it received. The world’s biggest online retailer said Los Angeles and 19 other places were shortlisted for the $5-billion second headquarters the company plans to build.

For those uninitiated, the Seattle-based giant sought proposals last year in September for its second corporate seat that is expected to generate over 50,000 high-paying jobs by 2030. 

Amazon has narrowed the search for its second headquarters down to 20 locations, which it intends to work with to make a final pick by the end of 2018. The finalists are: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Indianapolis; Miami; New York; Philadelphia; Toronto; Washington; Pittsburgh; Raleigh, N.C.; Nashville; Newark, N.J.; and Columbus, Ohio.

Surprisingly, America’s second largest populated city Los Angeles also figures in the list of potential sites in the United States besides northern Virginia and Maryland’s Montgomery County — both near Washington, D.C..

The Associated Press (AP) reports that the decision to include Los Angeles in the final 20 of Amazon's HQ2 list is a bit surprising given the fact Amazon’s headquarters are located in Seattle and there were rumours that the company would avoid setting up a second base on the West Coast.

Nonetheless according to Bloomberg, "the spectacle is also good optics for Amazon in the age of Trump." To recall President Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos, the boss of Amazon, were involved in a war of words, over creation of new jobs and sales taxes, but a pledge to create 50,000 high paying positions and invest $5 billion plays well into Trump's "Buy American, Hire American"  initiative unless obviously Toronto makes it to the top.

In the meanwhile,  Amazon said it was looking for an area that had a “highly educated labor pool” and a “strong university system.”