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