
The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business) - vinnyglennon
https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-country/
======
thomasfoster96
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.

~~~
dhacks
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...](http://paradisefoundaround.com/wp-
content/uploads/disneyland_paris_earl_of_sandwich_exterior1.jpg)

~~~
ludamad
What a tacky and misleading move

------
dredmorbius
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
> 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.

~~~
dredmorbius
It's distinctly 1996 here:

[https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-
almost...](https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-
country/)

~~~
rdlw
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)

~~~
dredmorbius
Fair point.

Regardless, with other entries in the 1990s, that's amazingly recent.

------
ineedasername
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
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.

------
Slikey
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
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
According to the standard established in other cases, that would probably make
Takamatsu the oldest company.

------
TheNewAndy
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
It wasn't started in America though.

~~~
squiggleblaz
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
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.

------
mzs
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_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszterh%C3%A1zy_K%C3%A1roly_University)

------
brozaman
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)

------
Steltek
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
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
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
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
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.

------
tricolon
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
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
(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.)

------
kolp
Ireland's neighbours: Banks, Mints, Postal Services, etc.

Ireland: A pub

Edit: Not having a go at the Irish. I'm Irish myself.

~~~
klohto
You cannot top central/eastern Europe :)

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

~~~
dyingkneepad
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
Now, that's a good "business" :-). I imagined that this is the same situation
as the other mints in the other countries.

------
xtracto
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#...](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_de_Moneda_de_M%C3%A9xico#Historia)
) is wrong (1535).

Interesting trivia tidbit to know that the oldest company in the Americas is
actually in Mexico.

~~~
dredmorbius
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation#Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Mar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Marcos)

The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, in Mexico City, was founded
several months later, the same year.

~~~
krilly
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
;)

~~~
skookum
Your comment got me interested in where the Jagiellonian University in Krakow
(alma mater to Copernicus) placed in these standings which led me to this
list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation)

~~~
dredmorbius
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22428584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22428584)
;-)

~~~
skookum
Ouch. Either I need to stop commenting while in a conference call or I'm going
senile. Or both.

~~~
dredmorbius
No worries.

I'm mirthed, however.

------
juskrey
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.

------
wyattpeak
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
Probably whatever result comes back from a Google search for "Oldest company
in _____".

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

~~~
gberger
Thank you. That map was incredibly hard to read.

------
nabla9
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 :)

------
Nielzsche
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.

------
sm0ss117
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
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)

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

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

------
tenant
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

------
pesfandiar
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.

------
NibsNiven
Canada: Hudson's Bay Company, 1670

England: The Royal Mint, 886

Scotland: Bank of Scotland, 1695

Ireland: Sean's Bar, 900

~~~
dghughes
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.

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

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

------
flerchin
Why is Alaska a separate color with no company listed?

~~~
chkaloon
It's a mystery land, nobody actually lives there...

~~~
peter303
Trump gave it back to Russia when Putin asked for it ;-)

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

------
zw123456
Sean's Bar, Ireland, 900. How many times has Danny Boy been sung in there ?
Chuckle. Fun fun map. Thanks for the post.

~~~
jackcosgrove
"Sean's Bar"

It doesn't get more Irish than that.

~~~
pinkfoot
What about: "Paddy's Bar" ?

~~~
welcome_dragon
Or Paddy's Pub

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

~~~
squiggleblaz
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?

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

~~~
RandallBrown
[https://www.workandmoney.com/s/oldest-business-every-
state-d...](https://www.workandmoney.com/s/oldest-business-every-state-
df5db7723801491e)

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Cool, thanks!

------
gck1
According to this map, Georgia doesn't even exist

------
justlexi93
Fascinating stuff, and well presented too.

------
kaajoo
Nice to see a company from Nepal too.

------
Papirola
no data for Israel ?

------
Andrew_nenakhov
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.

~~~
paxys
At that point why not count the British Empire as a business?

~~~
empath75
You could probably consider the British royal family a business.

But even if you don’t do that, for a long time the British empire _was_ a
corporation — the east India company.

~~~
Aeolun
Weren’t they just a majority shareholder?

------
ineedasername
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.

~~~
nitwit005
If you had a convenient time machine and gathered up say, a group Catholics
from today, a group from 100 years ago, and a group from 1000 years ago, you'd
have three groups of people with radically different beliefs. They might even
disagree with the idea they followed the same religion.

Part of what makes religions last is bending to the changing times. A lot of
the ones that didn't have faded away.

~~~
ineedasername
I don't have a "convenient" time machine, only an "inconvenient" one. It
travels only in one direction, forward, and at much the same pace as everyone
else seems to travel. There's always the example of Merlin though, whose time-
machine-body traveled only in the opposite direction at roughly the same pace
as everyone else's went forward. It has to be awkward for your first meeting
with someone to be their last meeting with you. And you can't even warn them
about their future when you meet them further in their past: Their future has
already happened. A truly frustrating existence. No wonder King Arthur's court
collapsed inward upon adulterous scandal and fanatical seeking of religious
artifacts.

------
dredmorbius
Disambiguated source: [https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-
almost...](https://businessfinancing.co.uk/the-oldest-company-in-almost-every-
country/)

~~~
dang
Ok, we changed to that from
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERtzZoaVAAE09Og?format=jpg&name=...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERtzZoaVAAE09Og?format=jpg&name=4096x4096).
Thanks!

