14 ms·

The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

314 points by vinnyglennon 7y ago

Slikey 7y ago
The oldest company in the world on this chart (Kongo Gumi in Japan) is not in Business anymore. It seized operations in 2006 due to bankruptcy.
- Shank 7y ago
  According to wikipedia, it was bought by Takamatsu and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary, though admittedly I don't think that counts anymore for this title: https://www.kongogumi.co.jp/ https://www.kongogumi.co.jp/.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    According to the standard established in other cases, that would probably make Takamatsu the oldest company.
- starmftronajoll 7y ago
  From the linked article: “With mounting debts, the company was absorbed into a bigger construction conglomerate in 2006 – but continues to pair traditional temple building techniques with the latest technology.”
dredmorbius 7y ago
Disambiguated source: https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-country/ https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost...
- dang 7y ago
  Ok, we changed to that from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERtzZoaVAAE09Og?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERtzZoaVAAE09Og?format=jpg&name=.... Thanks!
dredmorbius 7y ago
Interesting elements to me: - The prevalence of drinking and dining establishments amongst oldest-national businesses. - And banks / mints / financial institutions. - The relative youth of oldest-national-businesses in Africa. Most notably Equatorial Guinea with Guinea Equatorial Airlines, the country's oldest business corporation, founded in 1996. This suggests either a data artefact in which older going concerns are not formally reported (or those reports available), or an extreme level of institutional instability. Possibly both.
- yorwba 7y ago
  > Guinea Equatorial Airlines, the country's oldest business corporation, founded in 1996. The number looks more like 1962 to me (maybe they changed it). The actual youngest seems to be South Sudan's Ivory Bank, which was only founded in 1994. This is easily explained by the country being relatively new.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    Plenty of oldest companies in this map predate the countries they're currently in. The The oldest company in Mexico is apparently about 300 years older than Mexico, and the oldest company in Canada is about 200 years older than Canada.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    It's distinctly 1996 here: https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-country/ https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost...
    - rdlw 7y ago
      On the world map, it's distinctly 1962. 1996 seems to be the correct date: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Ecuatorial_Airlines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Ecuatorial_Airlines
      - 7y ago
Steltek 7y ago
It's amusing to consider the common wisdom that restaurants are a tough, low margin business yet make up so many of the eldest companies. Even if you exceed some threshold to make it to maturity, you'd think the statistics on survival would catch up with you eventually.
- blakesterz 7y ago
  It seems like restaurants/bars make it to a certain age where they become part of the fabric of a city/town. They turn into those places where "you just gotta go once or twice a year" and anytime someone comes in from out of town you take them or tell them to go. If I had to guess it's around 25 years. If my parents took me there when I was a kid, the restaurant makes it on that list. If my grandparents took my parents there, so much the better.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Such restaurants still usually end up going out of business. For example, a lot of the fried seafood warhorses in Boston are gone at this point. Still, if you talk about entire countries, there are often going to be some institutions that have at least some sort of vague claim to continuous operation/ownership.
    - subpixel 7y ago
      I wonder if that correlates to the local and affordable seafood also having disappeared. There's a limit to the number of customers you can attract with calamari and other things formerly considered bait.
      - ghaff 7y ago
        Possibly. Certainly any traditional deep-fried seafood platter is no cheaper than it was. But tastes have also changed. Although I'm sure they had other things, the traditional Boston seafood restaurants tended to be built around a lot of deep-fried fish (or boiled lobster). There's also been a lot of development in the area where most of them were. Legal's is certainly still around with a generally less heavy hand in terms of prep. And, in general, there are tons of newer seafood restaurants that are mostly in a somewhat different vein than the traditional ones.
Gusen 7y ago
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Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on FEB 24, 2O2O: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18am 4thJan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100-avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Trump rapes and kills twelve boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 1033 am on the 17 Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, NY on the 17th Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 gorepqkberqaoper,bqpo,rfbv. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5Jan'19 at 17:39 for billions in bribes: ;[fver,g.e rsabge 5JanCh2_1721-1818.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and Adam Schiff all rape and kill boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at about 20 minutes in- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 80's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5.15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi brpeokb btrbe https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 170 page PDF [last updated: Feb|25|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pkaye 7y ago
Ma Yu Ching's Bucket Chicken House in the oldest in China. Never would have expected a chicken place to top the list!
- karatestomp 7y ago
  If there's no older egg place, we may have an answer to a certain question.
yitchelle 7y ago
Not flippant question, but what is considered as a business?
- dyingkneepad 7y ago
  That's a good question, because "Casa da moeda do Brasil" is the "company" that actually prints the real money in Brazil. It's controlled by the state since forever (although the definition of 'state' changed wildly in the last 500 years, between colony, empire, dictatorship, republic, etc).
  - yitchelle 7y ago
    Now, that's a good "business" :-). I imagined that this is the same situation as the other mints in the other countries.
Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
I think that the crown of the oldest running business should go to the Roman Catholic Church, which was formally created in 325 AD, but in practice is a couple of centuries older. It is also the first transnational corporation in history.
- joezydeco 7y ago
  Longest running CEO, too. I always thought of the Pope as "COO, Earth Division."
- kubanczyk 7y ago
  Nitpicking here, but Rome was a backwater for a long time. That business evidently bootstrapped in the Middle East and is continued today as the Orthodox Church.
  - cmroanirgo 7y ago
    Can you clarify on which orthodox church? Greek, Russian and Ethiopian all come to mind, but I'm not aware of a general middle eastern one (genuinely curious). Perhaps it wasn't called orthodox back then (prior to 300AD)?
    - reptation 7y ago
      Presumably the Eastern Orthodox Church which includes the Greek and Russsian branches and was centered in Constantinople/Istanbul.
    - klipt 7y ago
      Oriental Orthodox Churches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches Are probably the most "Middle Eastern", but apparently they, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism were all the same church until various splits happened, so I'm not sure if you can say any of them are "older".
      - 7y ago
TheNewAndy 7y ago
I was expecting to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company for USA. I suspect there is always some wiggle room in the definitions of "oldest", but wikipedia dates it as earlier than Shirley Plantation (and it is also older than the company given for Armenia).
- psalminen 7y ago
  It wasn't started in America though.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    Because I'm meant to believe HSBC was started in El Salvador right? The standard in the image does not include having started there.
    - arethuza 7y ago
      That's presumably the local legal entity for HSBC - most large companies operate by having at least one local legal entity in each country they operate in which are usually wholly owned subsidiaries of some other company in the group.
xtracto 7y ago
The "Casa de Moneda de México" year is off by 1 I think (1534), or the Wikipedia entry ( https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_de_Moneda_de_M%C3%A9xico#Historia https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_de_Moneda_de_M%C3%A9xico#... ) is wrong (1535). Interesting trivia tidbit to know that the oldest company in the Americas is actually in Mexico.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The oldest continuously operating university in the Western Hemisphere is in Peru, established in 1551. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation#Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Marcos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Mar... The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, in Mexico City, was founded several months later, the same year.
  - krilly 7y ago
    If I were feeling pedantic I'd mention the universities of Oxford, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen... As well as a handful in Spain and Portugal ;)
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Few of those are in the Americas.
      - stordoff 7y ago
        They are in the Western Hemisphere though, hence the pedantry (presumably).
        dredmorbius 7y ago
        Pedant! ;-)
    - 7y ago
mzs 7y ago
FWIW there are some older universities in Hungary, for example the teachers' college in Eger has been continuously under one seal since 1774. There are some much older ones but they have periods of discontinuity which appears to be another flaw of this list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszterh%C3%A1zy_K%C3%A1roly_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszterh%C3%A1zy_K%C3%A1roly_Un...
nabla9 7y ago
Fiskars, Finland (1649) has grown by buying bunch of other old companies and brands, including Waterford Crystal, Ireland (1783), Royal Copenhagen, Denmark (1775), Rörstrand (1726). Fiskars also owns Gerber Legendary Blades, USA (1939) but that's only 80 years old company :)
cryptozeus 7y ago
An article that could have been just a big table. Here is the direct link of spread sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ynIAoLhz0SZYzjpwZ5e5mFzBxt6V28FTBjX7A99jq3E/edit#gid=1488665788 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ynIAoLhz0SZYzjpwZ5e5...
- gberger 7y ago
  Thank you. That map was incredibly hard to read.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I'd be interested to see this broken out by state for the US.
- RandallBrown 7y ago
  https://www.workandmoney.com/s/oldest-business-every-state-df5db7723801491e https://www.workandmoney.com/s/oldest-business-every-state-d...
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Cool, thanks!
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
Not sure what I expected but I was somewhat underwhelmed to see the oldest in Australia is Australia Post.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Only by the most contrived and tortured definition. The company only really dates to 1989, 1975 at the outside. Before that, it was a government department. If you can count a government department just because it later became a company, what kind of definition is that?
ineedasername 7y ago
If they're going to include religious companies like the Affligem Brewery, created by Monks, then religious organizations as a whole are fair game. And the Catholic Church, or some form of Orthodox Church, precedes pretty much everything else. I'd argue that a religion itself doesn't qualify though, it has to be a religious organization that had some level of central control, distinct from the government of nation-states (though potentially intertwined) and had assets & holdings independent of the nations they operated within. Under that definition, I'm not quite sure when the earliest christian organization would have qualified. I know it became the official Roman religion around 380 A.D., but was it centrally organized then (or was that the advent of its central organization?) Or did that happen earlier/later?
- andreitp1 7y ago
  I guess it depends on the primary purpose of the entity. It doesn't matter if Affligem (or any other business) was created by monks, atheists or space aliens. It's still a brewery. Of course, you could argue that all religious organizations are businesses, but for all intents and purposes we do not include them in these kinds of analyses, lest everything becomes a business and the analyses become meaningless.
flerchin 7y ago
Why is Alaska a separate color with no company listed?
- chkaloon 7y ago
  It's a mystery land, nobody actually lives there...
  - peter303 7y ago
    Trump gave it back to Russia when Putin asked for it ;-)
ineedasername 7y ago
Regardless of whether you believe in them, I think the longevity of religious organizations points the way towards how the human race can plan and advance with projects that cannot be completed in a single lifetime. Projects that require a vision beyond 10 years, much less 20, are exceedingly rare. Very, very few companies last more than a generation or two. This map in the article might make it seem like there are lots, but for context there are roughly 190 million companies on the planet, so to say these long-lived ones are an extreme outlier is still an understatement. Enter religious institutions: Ballpark estimates in my head indicate that, sure, some come & go quickly, but many have much more staying power than their pure corporate counterparts. Lasting a handful of generations is common: Many major sects of Christianity are hundreds of years old. I think this is a problem with human ability to truly plan in timescales longer than a generation, much less an entire human life time or longer. The purpose of a corporation is not to last forever, and changing markets often present hard limits on their lifetime, effectively a Great Filter for corporate enterprise. Contrast with the purpose of any religion, which is inherently devoted to beliefs that are not purported to be limited to a discrete period of time (excepting doomsday cults, which are interesting studies, but not in scope for this topic) I am not particularly religious, but I think this difference in longevity, stemming from inherent differences in purpose, points the way towards the type of mindset necessary for the human race to begin acting and planning from the truly long term, beyond the horizon of a human life time or two. Which is really necessary when you consider issues like climate change (regardless of what you believe is the cause (a separate debate) the effects must be dealt with over time scales that exceed a human life time) and not just that, but other grand projects than cannot be accomplished in a single lifetime.
- IIAOPSW 7y ago
  >Enter religious institutions: Ballpark estimates in my head indicate that, sure, some come & go quickly, but many have much more staying power than their pure corporate counterparts. Sounds like survivor-ship bias. How many now-dead religions were contemporary with Christianity?
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    I'm not sure it matters if, long ago, many religions were short lived. All that means is that over the millennia religions have evolved into much longer-lived entities, while corporations have not. Meaning they still present a useful case study for institutions capable of outliving a few short human life spans. And even then, looking at many dead religions (Greek, Roman, for example) they still held sway for hundreds of years, much longer than a typical corporation.
brailsafe 7y ago
One bit I find somewhat interesting is that most of "national oldest businesses" predate their current nations by quite a bit.
thomasfoster96 7y ago
This map seems to use a very variable and at times generous definition of both “company” and “still in business”. Sure, Australia Post is one of Australia’s oldest institutions if you count from the date of the establishment of its oldest predecessor (which this map does, as a Postmaster-General was first appointed for New South Wales in 1809), but a single national postal service wasn’t established until Australia itself was established in 1901 and the colonial postal services were merged, and even then it was a government department until 1975, and wasn’t corporatised until 1989 and remains government-owned to this day.
- chrysoprace 7y ago
  It's similar to how Carlton claim to have been around since 1832 (when in fact they were founded in 1903[1]). The fact is that their subsidiary Cascade has been around since 1832 but were bought out by Carlton much later[2], therefore making the claim that Carlton is the "oldest brewery in Australia". [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_%26_United_Breweries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_%26_United_Breweries [2]I can't find a reference to which year they were bought out, but the Wikipedia article above does mention they got bought and they mentioned the year when I took a tour of the Hobart brewery.
- garmaine 7y ago
  Likewise the "oldest" company in El Salvador is HSBC... the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. I mean that might be the oldest surviving locally registered corporation on the books, but it kinda wastes a chance to learn something interesting about the country.
- simo7 7y ago
  Yes, cases like Beretta, to name one, are more interesting. Founded in 1526, privately owned, never changed its name nor got acquired. It makes more than 200ml€/year in revenue and it seems it's still owned by somebody whose last name is Beretta.
- dhacks 7y ago
  Reminds me how the restaurant Earl of Sandwich, which was founded in 2004 in Orlando, puts established in 1762 on their website and the front of some of their buildings [1]. Just because the "sandwich" was invented in 1762. [1]: http://paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disneyland_paris_earl_of_sandwich_exterior1.jpg http://paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disneyland...
NibsNiven 7y ago
Canada: Hudson's Bay Company, 1670 England: The Royal Mint, 886 Scotland: Bank of Scotland, 1695 Ireland: Sean's Bar, 900
- dghughes 7y ago
  I was hoping my ancestors went to Sean's bar but it's in Athlone Co. Westmeath, Leinster. My mom's ancestors were from Co. Monaghan and dad's one of the counties somewhere in Ulster province.
pesfandiar 7y ago
The last list seems to be "list of countries with oldest running company" not "top 10 oldest companies in the world". I find it hard to believe none of the first 9 countries has a company older than China's oldest.
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
The map misses the oldest: Roman Church, ~2,000 years old as of today.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  As profitable as they are, I don't think they're a business.
wyattpeak 7y ago
The article claims that the oldest company in Kosovo was founded in 1999. I assume this is related to when it gained statehood, because it seems patently implausible that there are no institutions more than twenty years old. The trouble is, all sorts of entries on this list predate the formation of the modern states in which they reside. Serbia's Apatin Brewery (1756) clearly predates its time as a part of Yugoslavia. What's the requirement for inclusion here?
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Probably whatever result comes back from a Google search for "Oldest company in _____".
- arberavdullahu 7y ago
  I'm not sure how they got the data. I was able to find one company older than the one mentioned in the article which is still running. I'm referring to Birra e Pejes (Beer Peja) which was founded in 1968 [0]. There might be some discrepancies in this article because the information could have been obtained from English written sources, whereas, more accurate information is available in sources written in the native languages of each country. [0] https://gjirafa.biz/birra-e-pejs-1 https://gjirafa.biz/birra-e-pejs-1
justlexi93 7y ago
Fascinating stuff, and well presented too.
zw123456 7y ago
Sean's Bar, Ireland, 900. How many times has Danny Boy been sung in there ? Chuckle. Fun fun map. Thanks for the post.
- jackcosgrove 7y ago
  "Sean's Bar" It doesn't get more Irish than that.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    What about: "Paddy's Bar" ?
    - welcome_dragon 7y ago
      Or Paddy's Pub
kaajoo 7y ago
Nice to see a company from Nepal too.
tricolon 7y ago
If you didn't care about the "still in business" part—implying the same line of business—Stora Enso of Finland would date back to 1288: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso
- ptr 7y ago
  Stora Enso is actually a merger of two companies; Swedish Stora and Finnish Enso. It’s Stora that was founded in 1288 with the copper mine in Falun (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Mine), which produced 2/3 of Europe’s copper needs at one point in time. It was also the world’s first stock company apparently, and it’s still in business.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    (Being a merger does not exclude a company according to the standards of the map. For instance, Australia Post was at one stage a government department, formed by merging departments from several other governments. It's only by using this extremely contrived definition of "oldest company still in business" that they can reach 1809.)
juskrey 7y ago
Mostly the preservation of brand name, which is never the same as the company. Especially true for different public facing things like restaurants and breweries, which is almost always a retrobranding trick. Family tree washing.
Papirola 7y ago
no data for Israel ?
Nielzsche 7y ago
Brand brewery for the Netherlands is incorrect, they use 1340 because its good for marketing I guess but there is no real evidence the actual company was started around that time.
brozaman 7y ago
Related new: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2232308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2232308
kolp 7y ago
Ireland's neighbours: Banks, Mints, Postal Services, etc. Ireland: A pub Edit: Not having a go at the Irish. I'm Irish myself.
- klohto 7y ago
  You cannot top central/eastern Europe :)
tenant 7y ago
It makes sense that an inn can be very old. Even if they were to destroy a town, soldiers would still need somewhere to drink. In an era of blanket bombing etc this might no longer be the case. I'm sure some pretty ancient businesses were destroyed in WW2
gck1 7y ago
According to this map, Georgia doesn't even exist
sm0ss117 7y ago
Gonna be that guy and say that this map almost certainly has inaccuracies at least in southeast and south asia. If individual owner/operator businesses count I'm sure you can find some hole in the wall restaurant in Thailand dating before 1878. Also the fact that still operating is a requirement obviously imposes a massive colonialism penalty.
t0astbread 7y ago
The top ten list at the end only includes the companies shown on the maps. Wikipedia has a full list of the oldest companies in the world (both active and inactive): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

314 points by vinnyglennon 7y ago

The oldest company in the world on this chart (Kongo Gumi in Japan) is not in Business anymore. It seized operations in 2006 due to bankruptcy.

Shank 7y ago
According to wikipedia, it was bought by Takamatsu and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary, though admittedly I don't think that counts anymore for this title: https://www.kongogumi.co.jp/ https://www.kongogumi.co.jp/.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  According to the standard established in other cases, that would probably make Takamatsu the oldest company.
starmftronajoll 7y ago
From the linked article: “With mounting debts, the company was absorbed into a bigger construction conglomerate in 2006 – but continues to pair traditional temple building techniques with the latest technology.”

dredmorbius 7y ago

Disambiguated source: https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-country/ https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost...

dang 7y ago
Ok, we changed to that from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERtzZoaVAAE09Og?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERtzZoaVAAE09Og?format=jpg&name=.... Thanks!

dredmorbius 7y ago

Interesting elements to me: - The prevalence of drinking and dining establishments amongst oldest-national businesses. - And banks / mints / financial institutions. - The relative youth of oldest-national-businesses in Africa. Most notably Equatorial Guinea with Guinea Equatorial Airlines, the country's oldest business corporation, founded in 1996. This suggests either a data artefact in which older going concerns are not formally reported (or those reports available), or an extreme level of institutional instability. Possibly both.

yorwba 7y ago
> Guinea Equatorial Airlines, the country's oldest business corporation, founded in 1996. The number looks more like 1962 to me (maybe they changed it). The actual youngest seems to be South Sudan's Ivory Bank, which was only founded in 1994. This is easily explained by the country being relatively new.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  Plenty of oldest companies in this map predate the countries they're currently in. The The oldest company in Mexico is apparently about 300 years older than Mexico, and the oldest company in Canada is about 200 years older than Canada.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  It's distinctly 1996 here: https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-country/ https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost...
  - rdlw 7y ago
    On the world map, it's distinctly 1962. 1996 seems to be the correct date: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Ecuatorial_Airlines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Ecuatorial_Airlines
    - 7y ago

Steltek 7y ago

It's amusing to consider the common wisdom that restaurants are a tough, low margin business yet make up so many of the eldest companies. Even if you exceed some threshold to make it to maturity, you'd think the statistics on survival would catch up with you eventually.

blakesterz 7y ago
It seems like restaurants/bars make it to a certain age where they become part of the fabric of a city/town. They turn into those places where "you just gotta go once or twice a year" and anytime someone comes in from out of town you take them or tell them to go. If I had to guess it's around 25 years. If my parents took me there when I was a kid, the restaurant makes it on that list. If my grandparents took my parents there, so much the better.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Such restaurants still usually end up going out of business. For example, a lot of the fried seafood warhorses in Boston are gone at this point. Still, if you talk about entire countries, there are often going to be some institutions that have at least some sort of vague claim to continuous operation/ownership.
  - subpixel 7y ago
    I wonder if that correlates to the local and affordable seafood also having disappeared. There's a limit to the number of customers you can attract with calamari and other things formerly considered bait.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Possibly. Certainly any traditional deep-fried seafood platter is no cheaper than it was. But tastes have also changed. Although I'm sure they had other things, the traditional Boston seafood restaurants tended to be built around a lot of deep-fried fish (or boiled lobster). There's also been a lot of development in the area where most of them were. Legal's is certainly still around with a generally less heavy hand in terms of prep. And, in general, there are tons of newer seafood restaurants that are mostly in a somewhat different vein than the traditional ones.

Gusen 7y ago

Attorney General Barr will not resign; not before President Trump does. Barr is the same as Mueller, Schiff, Nadler, Pelosi: feign opposition to cover the true motive of obstruction to keep Trump in power. FBI Deputy Director Wray & Supreme Court Justice Alito are on board also. See latest updates. Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of "Impeachment" Is A Diversion And Delay - Part II: Blocking of the "impeachment" witnesses was collusion planned before the new year. Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 202O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates. Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones. BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpIUazmi/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI... The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency. 170 page PDF [last updated: February|25|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... Previously reported: \Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 815+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty! See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? OKpkpomtrpmv;lkmrw;tm;mb t;lk lkt lktvv wlkrlerv. Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O. \\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on FEB 24, 2O2O: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18am 4thJan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100-avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Trump rapes and kills twelve boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 1033 am on the 17 Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, NY on the 17th Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 gorepqkberqaoper,bqpo,rfbv. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5Jan'19 at 17:39 for billions in bribes: ;[fver,g.e rsabge 5JanCh2_1721-1818.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and Adam Schiff all rape and kill boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at about 20 minutes in- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 80's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5.15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi brpeokb btrbe https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 170 page PDF [last updated: Feb|25|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pkaye 7y ago

Ma Yu Ching's Bucket Chicken House in the oldest in China. Never would have expected a chicken place to top the list!

karatestomp 7y ago
If there's no older egg place, we may have an answer to a certain question.

yitchelle 7y ago

Not flippant question, but what is considered as a business?

dyingkneepad 7y ago
That's a good question, because "Casa da moeda do Brasil" is the "company" that actually prints the real money in Brazil. It's controlled by the state since forever (although the definition of 'state' changed wildly in the last 500 years, between colony, empire, dictatorship, republic, etc).
- yitchelle 7y ago
  Now, that's a good "business" :-). I imagined that this is the same situation as the other mints in the other countries.

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago

I think that the crown of the oldest running business should go to the Roman Catholic Church, which was formally created in 325 AD, but in practice is a couple of centuries older. It is also the first transnational corporation in history.

joezydeco 7y ago
Longest running CEO, too. I always thought of the Pope as "COO, Earth Division."
kubanczyk 7y ago
Nitpicking here, but Rome was a backwater for a long time. That business evidently bootstrapped in the Middle East and is continued today as the Orthodox Church.
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  Can you clarify on which orthodox church? Greek, Russian and Ethiopian all come to mind, but I'm not aware of a general middle eastern one (genuinely curious). Perhaps it wasn't called orthodox back then (prior to 300AD)?
  - reptation 7y ago
    Presumably the Eastern Orthodox Church which includes the Greek and Russsian branches and was centered in Constantinople/Istanbul.
  - klipt 7y ago
    Oriental Orthodox Churches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches Are probably the most "Middle Eastern", but apparently they, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism were all the same church until various splits happened, so I'm not sure if you can say any of them are "older".
    - 7y ago

TheNewAndy 7y ago

I was expecting to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company for USA. I suspect there is always some wiggle room in the definitions of "oldest", but wikipedia dates it as earlier than Shirley Plantation (and it is also older than the company given for Armenia).

psalminen 7y ago
It wasn't started in America though.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Because I'm meant to believe HSBC was started in El Salvador right? The standard in the image does not include having started there.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    That's presumably the local legal entity for HSBC - most large companies operate by having at least one local legal entity in each country they operate in which are usually wholly owned subsidiaries of some other company in the group.

xtracto 7y ago

The "Casa de Moneda de México" year is off by 1 I think (1534), or the Wikipedia entry ( https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_de_Moneda_de_M%C3%A9xico#Historia https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_de_Moneda_de_M%C3%A9xico#... ) is wrong (1535). Interesting trivia tidbit to know that the oldest company in the Americas is actually in Mexico.

dredmorbius 7y ago
The oldest continuously operating university in the Western Hemisphere is in Peru, established in 1551. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation#Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Marcos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Mar... The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, in Mexico City, was founded several months later, the same year.
- krilly 7y ago
  If I were feeling pedantic I'd mention the universities of Oxford, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen... As well as a handful in Spain and Portugal ;)
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Few of those are in the Americas.
    - stordoff 7y ago
      They are in the Western Hemisphere though, hence the pedantry (presumably).
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        Pedant! ;-)
  - 7y ago

mzs 7y ago

FWIW there are some older universities in Hungary, for example the teachers' college in Eger has been continuously under one seal since 1774. There are some much older ones but they have periods of discontinuity which appears to be another flaw of this list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszterh%C3%A1zy_K%C3%A1roly_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszterh%C3%A1zy_K%C3%A1roly_Un...

nabla9 7y ago

Fiskars, Finland (1649) has grown by buying bunch of other old companies and brands, including Waterford Crystal, Ireland (1783), Royal Copenhagen, Denmark (1775), Rörstrand (1726). Fiskars also owns Gerber Legendary Blades, USA (1939) but that's only 80 years old company :)

cryptozeus 7y ago

An article that could have been just a big table. Here is the direct link of spread sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ynIAoLhz0SZYzjpwZ5e5mFzBxt6V28FTBjX7A99jq3E/edit#gid=1488665788 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ynIAoLhz0SZYzjpwZ5e5...

gberger 7y ago
Thank you. That map was incredibly hard to read.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

I'd be interested to see this broken out by state for the US.

RandallBrown 7y ago
https://www.workandmoney.com/s/oldest-business-every-state-df5db7723801491e https://www.workandmoney.com/s/oldest-business-every-state-d...
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Cool, thanks!

Polylactic_acid 7y ago

Not sure what I expected but I was somewhat underwhelmed to see the oldest in Australia is Australia Post.

squiggleblaz 7y ago
Only by the most contrived and tortured definition. The company only really dates to 1989, 1975 at the outside. Before that, it was a government department. If you can count a government department just because it later became a company, what kind of definition is that?

ineedasername 7y ago

If they're going to include religious companies like the Affligem Brewery, created by Monks, then religious organizations as a whole are fair game. And the Catholic Church, or some form of Orthodox Church, precedes pretty much everything else. I'd argue that a religion itself doesn't qualify though, it has to be a religious organization that had some level of central control, distinct from the government of nation-states (though potentially intertwined) and had assets & holdings independent of the nations they operated within. Under that definition, I'm not quite sure when the earliest christian organization would have qualified. I know it became the official Roman religion around 380 A.D., but was it centrally organized then (or was that the advent of its central organization?) Or did that happen earlier/later?

andreitp1 7y ago
I guess it depends on the primary purpose of the entity. It doesn't matter if Affligem (or any other business) was created by monks, atheists or space aliens. It's still a brewery. Of course, you could argue that all religious organizations are businesses, but for all intents and purposes we do not include them in these kinds of analyses, lest everything becomes a business and the analyses become meaningless.

flerchin 7y ago

Why is Alaska a separate color with no company listed?

chkaloon 7y ago
It's a mystery land, nobody actually lives there...
- peter303 7y ago
  Trump gave it back to Russia when Putin asked for it ;-)

ineedasername 7y ago

Regardless of whether you believe in them, I think the longevity of religious organizations points the way towards how the human race can plan and advance with projects that cannot be completed in a single lifetime. Projects that require a vision beyond 10 years, much less 20, are exceedingly rare. Very, very few companies last more than a generation or two. This map in the article might make it seem like there are lots, but for context there are roughly 190 million companies on the planet, so to say these long-lived ones are an extreme outlier is still an understatement. Enter religious institutions: Ballpark estimates in my head indicate that, sure, some come & go quickly, but many have much more staying power than their pure corporate counterparts. Lasting a handful of generations is common: Many major sects of Christianity are hundreds of years old. I think this is a problem with human ability to truly plan in timescales longer than a generation, much less an entire human life time or longer. The purpose of a corporation is not to last forever, and changing markets often present hard limits on their lifetime, effectively a Great Filter for corporate enterprise. Contrast with the purpose of any religion, which is inherently devoted to beliefs that are not purported to be limited to a discrete period of time (excepting doomsday cults, which are interesting studies, but not in scope for this topic) I am not particularly religious, but I think this difference in longevity, stemming from inherent differences in purpose, points the way towards the type of mindset necessary for the human race to begin acting and planning from the truly long term, beyond the horizon of a human life time or two. Which is really necessary when you consider issues like climate change (regardless of what you believe is the cause (a separate debate) the effects must be dealt with over time scales that exceed a human life time) and not just that, but other grand projects than cannot be accomplished in a single lifetime.

IIAOPSW 7y ago
>Enter religious institutions: Ballpark estimates in my head indicate that, sure, some come & go quickly, but many have much more staying power than their pure corporate counterparts. Sounds like survivor-ship bias. How many now-dead religions were contemporary with Christianity?
- ineedasername 7y ago
  I'm not sure it matters if, long ago, many religions were short lived. All that means is that over the millennia religions have evolved into much longer-lived entities, while corporations have not. Meaning they still present a useful case study for institutions capable of outliving a few short human life spans. And even then, looking at many dead religions (Greek, Roman, for example) they still held sway for hundreds of years, much longer than a typical corporation.

brailsafe 7y ago

One bit I find somewhat interesting is that most of "national oldest businesses" predate their current nations by quite a bit.

thomasfoster96 7y ago

This map seems to use a very variable and at times generous definition of both “company” and “still in business”. Sure, Australia Post is one of Australia’s oldest institutions if you count from the date of the establishment of its oldest predecessor (which this map does, as a Postmaster-General was first appointed for New South Wales in 1809), but a single national postal service wasn’t established until Australia itself was established in 1901 and the colonial postal services were merged, and even then it was a government department until 1975, and wasn’t corporatised until 1989 and remains government-owned to this day.

chrysoprace 7y ago
It's similar to how Carlton claim to have been around since 1832 (when in fact they were founded in 1903[1]). The fact is that their subsidiary Cascade has been around since 1832 but were bought out by Carlton much later[2], therefore making the claim that Carlton is the "oldest brewery in Australia". [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_%26_United_Breweries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_%26_United_Breweries [2]I can't find a reference to which year they were bought out, but the Wikipedia article above does mention they got bought and they mentioned the year when I took a tour of the Hobart brewery.
garmaine 7y ago
Likewise the "oldest" company in El Salvador is HSBC... the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. I mean that might be the oldest surviving locally registered corporation on the books, but it kinda wastes a chance to learn something interesting about the country.
simo7 7y ago
Yes, cases like Beretta, to name one, are more interesting. Founded in 1526, privately owned, never changed its name nor got acquired. It makes more than 200ml€/year in revenue and it seems it's still owned by somebody whose last name is Beretta.
dhacks 7y ago
Reminds me how the restaurant Earl of Sandwich, which was founded in 2004 in Orlando, puts established in 1762 on their website and the front of some of their buildings [1]. Just because the "sandwich" was invented in 1762. [1]: http://paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disneyland_paris_earl_of_sandwich_exterior1.jpg http://paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disneyland...

NibsNiven 7y ago

Canada: Hudson's Bay Company, 1670 England: The Royal Mint, 886 Scotland: Bank of Scotland, 1695 Ireland: Sean's Bar, 900

dghughes 7y ago
I was hoping my ancestors went to Sean's bar but it's in Athlone Co. Westmeath, Leinster. My mom's ancestors were from Co. Monaghan and dad's one of the counties somewhere in Ulster province.

pesfandiar 7y ago

The last list seems to be "list of countries with oldest running company" not "top 10 oldest companies in the world". I find it hard to believe none of the first 9 countries has a company older than China's oldest.

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

The map misses the oldest: Roman Church, ~2,000 years old as of today.

squiggleblaz 7y ago
As profitable as they are, I don't think they're a business.

wyattpeak 7y ago

The article claims that the oldest company in Kosovo was founded in 1999. I assume this is related to when it gained statehood, because it seems patently implausible that there are no institutions more than twenty years old. The trouble is, all sorts of entries on this list predate the formation of the modern states in which they reside. Serbia's Apatin Brewery (1756) clearly predates its time as a part of Yugoslavia. What's the requirement for inclusion here?

Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Probably whatever result comes back from a Google search for "Oldest company in _____".
arberavdullahu 7y ago
I'm not sure how they got the data. I was able to find one company older than the one mentioned in the article which is still running. I'm referring to Birra e Pejes (Beer Peja) which was founded in 1968 [0]. There might be some discrepancies in this article because the information could have been obtained from English written sources, whereas, more accurate information is available in sources written in the native languages of each country. [0] https://gjirafa.biz/birra-e-pejs-1 https://gjirafa.biz/birra-e-pejs-1

justlexi93 7y ago

Fascinating stuff, and well presented too.

zw123456 7y ago

Sean's Bar, Ireland, 900. How many times has Danny Boy been sung in there ? Chuckle. Fun fun map. Thanks for the post.

jackcosgrove 7y ago
"Sean's Bar" It doesn't get more Irish than that.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  What about: "Paddy's Bar" ?
  - welcome_dragon 7y ago
    Or Paddy's Pub

kaajoo 7y ago

Nice to see a company from Nepal too.

tricolon 7y ago

If you didn't care about the "still in business" part—implying the same line of business—Stora Enso of Finland would date back to 1288: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso

ptr 7y ago
Stora Enso is actually a merger of two companies; Swedish Stora and Finnish Enso. It’s Stora that was founded in 1288 with the copper mine in Falun (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Mine), which produced 2/3 of Europe’s copper needs at one point in time. It was also the world’s first stock company apparently, and it’s still in business.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  (Being a merger does not exclude a company according to the standards of the map. For instance, Australia Post was at one stage a government department, formed by merging departments from several other governments. It's only by using this extremely contrived definition of "oldest company still in business" that they can reach 1809.)

juskrey 7y ago

Mostly the preservation of brand name, which is never the same as the company. Especially true for different public facing things like restaurants and breweries, which is almost always a retrobranding trick. Family tree washing.

Papirola 7y ago

no data for Israel ?

Nielzsche 7y ago

Brand brewery for the Netherlands is incorrect, they use 1340 because its good for marketing I guess but there is no real evidence the actual company was started around that time.

brozaman 7y ago

Related new: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2232308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2232308

kolp 7y ago

Ireland's neighbours: Banks, Mints, Postal Services, etc. Ireland: A pub Edit: Not having a go at the Irish. I'm Irish myself.

klohto 7y ago
You cannot top central/eastern Europe :)

tenant 7y ago

It makes sense that an inn can be very old. Even if they were to destroy a town, soldiers would still need somewhere to drink. In an era of blanket bombing etc this might no longer be the case. I'm sure some pretty ancient businesses were destroyed in WW2

gck1 7y ago

According to this map, Georgia doesn't even exist

sm0ss117 7y ago

Gonna be that guy and say that this map almost certainly has inaccuracies at least in southeast and south asia. If individual owner/operator businesses count I'm sure you can find some hole in the wall restaurant in Thailand dating before 1878. Also the fact that still operating is a requirement obviously imposes a massive colonialism penalty.

t0astbread 7y ago

The top ten list at the end only includes the companies shown on the maps. Wikipedia has a full list of the oldest companies in the world (both active and inactive): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies