Staffelter Hof Winery is Germany's oldest business, established in 862 under the Carolingian dynasty. It has continued to serve customers through dramatic changes in Europe, such as the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and both world wars. What characteristics enable a business to stand the test of time?
To help answer this question, BusinessFinancing.co.uk researched the oldest company still in business in almost every country and compiled the results into several CSV files. This dataset has been cleaned.
Having useful information in different files is a common problem. While it's better to keep different types of data separate for data storage, you'll want all the data in one place for analysis. You'll use joining and data manipulation to work with this data and better understand the world's oldest businesses.
The Data
businesses and new_businesses
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
business | Name of the business (varchar) |
year_founded | Year the business was founded (int) |
category_code | Code for the business category (varchar) |
country_code | ISO 3166-1 three-letter country code (char) |
countries
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
country_code | ISO 3166-1 three-letter country code (varchar) |
country | Name of the country (varchar) |
continent | Name of the continent the country exists in (varchar) |
categories
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
category_code | Code for the business category (varchar) |
category | Description of the business category (varchar) |
-- What is the oldest business on each continent?
--CTE for the oldest year founded per continent ON BUSINESSES / DOES NOT INCLUDE NEW_BUSINESSES
WITH oldest AS (
SELECT
c.continent,
c.country,
c.country_code,
b.business,
MIN(b.year_founded) AS oldest_business_founding
FROM businesses AS b
LEFT JOIN countries AS c
ON b.country_code = c.country_code
GROUP BY c.continent, c.country, c.country_code, b.business
ORDER BY c.continent, c.country_code)
SELECT
continent,
country,
business,
oldest_business_founding AS year_founded
FROM oldest AS o1
WHERE oldest_business_founding = (
SELECT MIN(oldest_business_founding)
FROM oldest AS o2
WHERE o1.continent = o2.continent);
-- How many countries per continent lack data on the oldest businesses
WITH cte AS (
SELECT
nb.business AS biz1,
b.business AS biz2,
nb.year_founded AS year1,
b.year_founded AS year2,
c.country,
c.continent
FROM new_businesses AS nb
FULL JOIN countries AS c
ON nb.country_code = c.country_code
FULL JOIN businesses AS b
ON c.country_code = b.country_code
ORDER BY continent)
--selecting the continents and counts of countries w/o oldest business listed
SELECT continent, COUNT(country) AS countries_without_businesses
FROM cte
WHERE biz1 IS NULL
AND biz2 IS NULL
GROUP BY continent
ORDER by countries_without_businesses DESC;
-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
WITH cte2 AS (
SELECT
nb.business AS biz1,
b.business AS biz2,
nb.year_founded AS year1,
b.year_founded AS year2,
c.country,
c.continent,
cat1.category AS category1,
cat2.category AS category2
FROM new_businesses AS nb
FULL JOIN countries AS c
ON nb.country_code = c.country_code
FULL JOIN businesses AS b
ON c.country_code = b.country_code
LEFT JOIN categories AS cat2
ON b.category_code = cat2.category_code
LEFT JOIN categories AS cat1
ON nb.category_code = cat1.category_code
ORDER BY continent)
SELECT
cte2.continent, category2 AS category, MIN(cte2.year2) AS year_founded
FROM cte2
WHERE category2 IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY cte2.continent, category2
ORDER BY continent, category;