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_continent AS (
SELECT continent, MIN(businesses.year_founded) AS min_year
FROM countries
INNER JOIN businesses
USING (country_code)
GROUP BY continent
)
SELECT c.continent, c.country, b.business, b.year_founded
FROM businesses AS b
INNER JOIN countries AS c
USING (country_code)
INNER JOIN oldest_continent AS o
ON o.min_year = b.year_founded
ORDER BY year_founded;-- How many countries per continent lack data on the oldest businesses
-- Does including the `new_businesses` data change this?
-- What is the oldest business on each continent?
WITH all_businesses AS (
SELECT *
FROM businesses
UNION
SELECT *
FROM new_businesses
)
SELECT
continent,
COUNT (*) AS countries_without_businesses
FROM countries
LEFT JOIN all_businesses
USING (country_code)
WHERE business IS NULL
GROUP BY continent;-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
SELECT countries.continent,
categories.category,
MIN(businesses.year_founded) AS year_founded
FROM businesses
INNER JOIN countries
USING (country_code)
INNER JOIN categories
USING (category_code)
GROUP BY countries.continent,categories.category;