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