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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

ColumnDescription
businessName of the business (varchar)
year_foundedYear the business was founded (int)
category_codeCode for the business category (varchar)
country_codeISO 3166-1 three-letter country code (char)

countries

ColumnDescription
country_codeISO 3166-1 three-letter country code (varchar)
countryName of the country (varchar)
continentName of the continent the country exists in (varchar)

categories

ColumnDescription
category_codeCode for the business category (varchar)
categoryDescription of the business category (varchar)
Spinner
DataFrameas
oldest_business_continent
variable
-- What is the oldest business on each continent?
-- CTE for oldest business by continent
WITH c1 AS(
	SELECT b.country_code, countries.continent, countries.country, b.year_founded, ROW_NUMBER () OVER(PARTITION BY countries.continent 	
	ORDER BY year_founded) AS old_rank
	FROM businesses AS b
	INNER JOIN countries 
	ON countries.country_code = b.country_code)
SELECT c1.continent, c1.country, b1.business, c1.year_founded
FROM c1
INNER JOIN businesses AS b1
	ON b1.country_code = c1.country_code
WHERE c1.old_rank = 1
Spinner
DataFrameas
count_missing
variable
-- How many countries per continent lack data on the oldest businesses
-- Does including the `new_businesses` data change this?
WITH cte AS(
	SELECT countries.*, b.* --combine both tables
	FROM (SELECT * --business & new business
		FROM businesses
		UNION ALL
		SELECT *
		FROM new_businesses) AS b
	RIGHT JOIN countries --keeps null values
		ON b.country_code = countries.country_code
	WHERE b.business IS NULL) --filter for NULL values
SELECT cte.continent, COUNT(cte.*) AS countries_without_businesses --Main query
FROM cte
GROUP BY continent;






Spinner
DataFrameas
oldest_by_continent_category
variable
-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
WITH cte AS(
	SELECT co.continent, ca.category, b.year_founded, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY co.continent, ca.category ORDER 		
	BY b.year_founded) AS old_rank
	FROM businesses AS b
	INNER JOIN countries AS co
		ON b.country_code = co.country_code
	INNER JOIN categories AS ca
		ON b.category_code = ca.category_code)
SELECT continent, category, year_founded
FROM cte 
WHERE old_rank = 1;