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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?
WITH r AS (

SELECT
	cou.continent,
	cou.country,
	bus.business,
	bus.year_founded,
	ROW_NUMBER () OVER (PARTITION BY continent ORDER BY year_founded ASC) AS rank_oldest
FROM countries AS cou
LEFT JOIN businesses AS bus
ON cou.country_code = bus.country_code
)

SELECT 
	continent,
	country,
	business,
	year_founded	
FROM r
WHERE rank_oldest = 1
Spinner
DataFrameas
df
variable
SELECT * 
	FROM countries AS cou
	LEFT JOIN businesses AS bus
	ON cou.country_code = bus.country_code
	LEFT JOIN new_businesses AS nbus
	ON cou.country_code = nbus.country_code
	WHERE bus.business IS NULL OR nbus.business IS NULL
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 bus_null AS
(SELECT * 
	FROM countries AS cou
	LEFT JOIN businesses AS bus
	ON cou.country_code = bus.country_code
	LEFT JOIN new_businesses AS nbus
	ON cou.country_code = nbus.country_code
	WHERE bus.business IS NULL )


SELECT DISTINCT continent,
		COUNT (*) AS countries_without_businesses
FROM bus_null
GROUP BY continent
Spinner
DataFrameas
oldest_by_continent_category
variable
-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
WITH tb AS (
	SELECT
		c.continent,
		ca.category,
		MIN (b.year_founded) AS year_founded
FROM businesses AS b
LEFT JOIN countries AS c
ON b.country_code=c.country_code
LEFT JOIN categories AS ca
ON b.category_code = ca.category_code
GROUP BY ROLLUP (c.continent,ca.category)
ORDER BY continent DESC
)

SELECT continent, category, year_founded
FROM tb
WHERE continent IS NOT NULL AND category IS NOT NULL
Spinner
DataFrameas
df1
variable
WITH tb AS (
	SELECT
		c.continent,
		ca.category,
		MIN (b.year_founded) AS year_founded
FROM businesses AS b
LEFT JOIN countries AS c
ON b.country_code=c.country_code
LEFT JOIN categories AS ca
ON b.category_code = ca.category_code
GROUP BY ROLLUP (c.continent,ca.category)
ORDER BY continent DESC
)

SELECT continent, category, year_founded
FROM tb
WHERE continent IS NOT NULL AND category IS NOT NULL