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) |
-- continent, country, business, year_founded
-- oldest business: min year, group by continent
-- join businesses w countries
with row_num_businesses as (Select c.continent,
c.country,
b.business,
b.year_founded,
row_number () over(partition by c.continent order by b.year_founded asc) as row_num
From businesses b
Join countries c on b.country_code = c.country_code
group by c.continent, c.country, b.business, b.year_founded
)
select continent,
country,
business,
year_founded
from row_num_businesses
where row_num = 1
order by continent;-- count countries per continent without business data
-- join new_businesses, join countries
-- result w continent, countries_without_businesses
WITH all_businesses AS (
SELECT *
FROM businesses
UNION
SELECT *
FROM new_businesses)
Select c.continent,
count(distinct c.country) as countries_without_businesses
From countries c
left join all_businesses on c.country_code = all_businesses.country_code
where business is NULL
group by continent;-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
-- join businesses w countries
WITH oldest_businesses AS (
SELECT
c.continent,
ca.category,
MIN(b.year_founded) AS year_founded
FROM
businesses b
JOIN
countries c ON b.country_code = c.country_code
JOIN
categories ca ON b.category_code = ca.category_code
GROUP BY
c.continent, ca.category
)
SELECT
continent,
category,
year_founded
FROM
oldest_businesses
ORDER BY
continent, category;