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?
WITH oldest_business AS (
SELECT continent,
country,
business,
year_founded
FROM businesses AS b
INNER JOIN countries AS c
USING(country_code)
),
ranked AS (
SELECT *,
RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY continent ORDER BY year_founded) AS rank
FROM oldest_business
)
SELECT continent,
country,
business,
year_founded
FROM ranked
WHERE rank = 1;-- How many countries per continent lack data on the oldest businesses
-- Does including the `new_businesses` data change this?
WITH all_businesses AS (
SELECT *
FROM businesses
UNION
SELECT *
FROM new_businesses AS nb
)
SELECT continent,
COUNT(*) AS countries_without_businesses
FROM all_businesses AS ab
RIGHT JOIN countries AS c
ON ab.country_code = c.country_code
WHERE business IS NULL
GROUP BY continent
ORDER BY continent
-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
WITH oldest_business_category AS (
SELECT category,
country_code,
year_founded
FROM categories AS c
INNER JOIN businesses AS b
ON c.category_code = b.category_code
),
obc_continent AS (
SELECT continent,
category,
year_founded
FROM oldest_business_category AS obc
INNER JOIN countries AS c
ON obc.country_code = c.country_code
),
ranked AS (
SELECT *,
RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY continent, category ORDER BY year_founded) AS rank
FROM obc_continent
--ORDER BY year_founded
)
SELECT continent,
category,
year_founded,
rank
FROM ranked
--WHERE rank = 1