The United States is an economic powerhouse. In 2016, the economy totaled almost $19 trillion, a number greater than that of the entire European Union even though the US has less than half the EU’s population. While the reasons for the country’s economic success are complex, one of the most critical factors is the specialization of regions. Almost everyone knows that Los Angeles, California is a hub for burgeoning actors, the finance industry is concentrated on Wall Street in NY and that tourists flock to Las Vegas, Nevada and all parts of Hawaii. But did you know that Virginia is a tech hub, Michigan has the highest relative concentration of engineers and West Virginia has more than its fair share of healthcare practitioners?

We didn’t either, which is why we mapped how jobs are concentrated across the US.

How the map works

For each state, we calculated the percentage of its working population that was employed in one of 22 occupation groups. For example, in North Dakota, 8.4% of the population works in Construction and Extraction. Next, for each occupation group, we ranked each state from 1 to 50 by their percentage. In Construction and Extraction, Wyoming is ranked 1st, with 10.4% of its working population employed in that group, and Illinois is ranked 50th at 3.0%. Finally, using the percentages, we created the Job Concentration Score, a number from 0 to 100 that we use to map the rankings. States that are colored in a darker green have a high percentage of their workforce concentrated in the occupation group (in other words, they have a high Job Concentration Score) whereas states colored in a light green have a low percentage of their workforce in the occupation group (a low Job Concentration Score).

Click the industry you want to explore and hover your mouse over your state to get started.

blarg Josephine, Oregon State Rank: 2,198 of 3,135 Median Income: $36,699

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The highlights

After you’ve checked out the map, take a look at some of the most interesting highlights.