= > ^~ > ~ > ~* > /xxx

1. Directives with the "=" prefix that match the query exactly. If found, searching stops.
2. All remaining directives with conventional strings. If this match used the "^~" prefix, searching stops.
3. Regular expressions, in the order they are defined in the configuration file.
4. If #3 yielded a match, that result is used. Otherwise, the match from #2 is used.

 1location = / {
 2}
 3
 4location ^~ /images/ {
 5}
 6
 7location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg)$ {
 8}
 9
10location /documents/ {
11}
12
13location / {
14}

See also:

• Nginx location priority - Stack Overflow
• Module ngx_http_core_module