When it comes to Massachusetts’ economy, most of the stereotypes are actually true. On Cape Cod, people fish; around Worcester, they build; and out west, they’re focused­ on upmarket produce.

These are the kinds of locally distinctive jobs that not only give each region its character but show how much we rely on trade to make Massachusetts work. Not every town can produce everything it needs; we specialize, and then we swap.

To be clear, it’s not that fruit and vegetable vendors in the Berkshires outnumber engineers or supermarket cashiers — they don’t. But what makes those produce vendors such a defining, distinctive feature of the region is that they are more common in Western Massachusetts than nearly anywhere else in the country.

This month, the US Labor Department released a remarkable batch of information on this subject, describing in minute detail what people do for work around the country. Want to know how many dairy farmers there are in Wisconsin, or how many people in Los Angeles work as agents for actors, celebrities, and other public figures? It’s all there (14,684 farmers, and 11,863 agents).

More revealing, the stats also show how locally concentrated some of these jobs can be. No other county in the nation can match LA when it comes to finding an agent. Closer to home, it turns out that Martha’s Vineyard has more chocolate and candy confectioners, per capita, than any other place in the country.

Cliches abound when looking over these lists of region-defining jobs. The most distinctive job in New Hampshire? Small arms manufacturing. In Vermont? Goat farming, followed by running bed-and-breakfast inns. And second from the top in Connecticut? Life insurance.

Massachusetts is split between tradition and innovation, with an unusually high number of people in fishing and an equally unusual concentration of people involved in making computer-storage devices.

But the really interesting patterns emerge when you look more closely at regions, because that shows the still-vital connection between work and geography. Trawling happens on the coast, planting takes place where development is sparse, and manufacturing operations are located in the sweet spots where space is affordable and shipping accessible.

The state seems to break into four regions, each with its own distinct economic ecosystem.

First, the southeast part, including everything hanging off the rectangular part of the state. There, the defining jobs involve fishing (shellfish and finfish), tourism, and artisanal work like making jewelry.

Boston is where a lot of that fish gets sold, which creates a bubble of seafood wholesalers. But Greater Boston as a whole is most defined by its biotechnology workers, financiers, and portfolio managers.

Counties at the fringe of Boston’s gravity — like Worcester and Essex — lean toward manufacturing, some of it advanced (like computers and optics) and some is more conventional (like cutlery and shoes).

And then there’s Western Massachusetts, home to the most eclectic mix of regional specialties, including educational services, savings banks, vegetable and melon farming, and freestanding emergency medical centers.

Turning all this around, the Labor Department data can also tell us something about the jobs Massachusetts doesn’t have — work that’s common elsewhere in the country but rare in our backyard. We don’t, for instance, have so many mobile home dealers, beef cattle ranchers, or drillers of oil and gas wells.

Also high on this list of missing jobs: positions at churches, shrines, temples, and mosques. Despite our rich religious traditions and a bounty of historic churches, Massachusetts no longer has much of a religious workforce. Total employment in that area amounts to roughly one-20th of what you might expect, given the size of our population and the national pattern.

But if we’re no longer people of the book, at least we can claim to be people of the newsstand.

Massachusetts has three times as many newsstand workers as the typical US county, and Boston has 10 times more, which beats Manhattan and leaves us second only to Queens, N.Y.

And if finishing second in newsstand jobs leaves you feeling a little jealous of Queens, consider this: Its most distinctive job involves correctional institutions.

Specialty work

ª Southeast

(Barnstable, Plymouth, Dukes, Nantucket, Bristol)

Fishing, bed and breakfasts, artisanal work (jewelry, confection)

ª West

(Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire)

Fruits and vegetables, farming and vending, banks, education

ª Exurban Boston

(Worcester, Essex, Norfolk)

Manufacturing, advanced (computer and optics) and familiar (cutlery, engines, shoes)

ª Greater Boston

(Suffolk, Middlesex)

Biotech, portfolio management, newsstands

Evan Horowitz digs through data to find information that illuminates the policy issues facing Massachusetts and the nation. He can be reached at evan.horowitz@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeHorowitz.