Would-be transplants to Oregon might want to consider moving to Corvallis, Oregon’s “most livable city” – at least according to one website’s rankings.

ChamberofCommerce.org, a website that conducts studies aimed at helping small businesses, ranked Corvallis first in its 2019 list of best cities to live in Oregon based on five factors: employment, housing, quality of life, education and health.

Lake Oswego and Hillsboro were ranked second and third, respectively, followed by Ashland in fourth place and Sherwood, a suburb of Portland, in fifth. Portland did not place in the top 25 cities ranked by ChamberofCommerce.org.

The study analyzed more than 2,500 cities around the country with populations over 25,000 and ranked them on a state-by-state basis.

“ChamberofCommerce.org intends to highlight the cities that have either improved overall livability for their residents or have upheld their existing high standards,” the website said in a news release.

Its “employment” category considered the number of employers in a city as well as median earnings, while “housing” took into account monthly costs as well as the average value of owner-occupied units with a mortgage.

The “quality of life” ranking was based off of the length of the average resident’s work commute as well as the city’s overall poverty levels. For “education,” the study looked at the percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and for “health” it focused on residents’ obesity rates.

ChamberofCommerce.org used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control in its analysis.

Corvallis, a city of around 55,000 and the county seat of Benton County, was ranked highly because of Oregon State University’s influence on its “lively arts & culture scene,” ChamberofCommerce.org said. Lake Oswego benefited from its namesake body of water, called “perfect for swimming and watersports,” while Hillsboro is known as a hub of the Silicon Forest, a cluster of tech companies in the area.

The study also lauded Hillsboro’s “proximity to the Pacific Ocean,” although the city is about 70 miles from the coast.

ChamberofCommerce.org said some cities were excluded from consideration if the data on them was unavailable.

-- Diana Kruzman; dkruzman@oregonian.com; 503-221-5394; @DKruzman