It seems that every local official across the US and Canada is trying to lure Amazon to his or her city or town.

To state their case for the company's second headquarters, officials tout their region's benefits, potential tax breaks, and local opportunities. But what does Amazon really want in a potential location? The financial-services arm of Moody's looked at what Amazon may want in a city — both stated and inferred — to come up with a list of the best candidate cities for HQ2.

Moody's looked at five factors: business environment, human capital, cost, quality of life, and transportation. It then assigned a number to each city and a weight to each factor to come up with its list of 10 cities. An additional category, geography, was considered, but was not factored into the rankings. Moody's excluded Seattle, the site of Amazon's current headquarters, from consideration.

Amazon said it would invest $5 billion in the construction of its new headquarters, and it hopes to eventually house 50,000 Amazon staff members there, gradually building up its workforce. The deadline for cities to submit a proposal is Thursday.

Here's where Amazon is most likely to put down roots, according to the data. All quotes are from Moody's.