---
title: "Which came first, Coca-Cola or Germany?"
description: "Coca-Cola vs Germany: Germany came first, by 15 years — 1871 against 1886. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/coca-cola-vs-germany/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Coca-Cola or Germany?

**Which came first, Coca-Cola or Germany?: Germany**

1871 — 15 years before Coca-Cola

Germany came first, by 15 years. The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles.

## Side by side

|  | Coca-Cola | Germany |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1871 |
| Date | 1886-05-08 | 1871-01-18 |
| Category | company | country |
| What happened | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles. |

## Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola went on sale in May 1886 as a patent medicine, selling about nine glasses a day in its first year. Pemberton sold the rights for a few thousand dollars and died in 1888 without seeing any of it. Pepsi followed in 1893 under the name Brad's Drink, renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898 — so Coke is seven years older, and both are older than the Ford Motor Company.

## Germany

Germany as a unified state dates from 1871, which makes it younger than the United States, Canada, Italy and the bicycle. It then ceased to exist as a single state in 1949 and was reunified on 3 October 1990, so the current Federal Republic in its present borders is younger than the personal computer. Nintendo, founded in 1889, is older than most people's mental image of Germany allows.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Coca-Cola or Germany?

Germany, by 15 years — 1871 against 1886.

### When did Coca-Cola start?

1886. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

### When did Germany start?

1871. The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]