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Project: Uncovering the World's Oldest Businesses

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
DataFrameavailable as
oldest_business_continent
variable
-- 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;


Spinner
DataFrameavailable as
count_missing
variable
-- 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;
Spinner
DataFrameavailable as
oldest_by_continent_category
variable
-- 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;