São Caetano do Sul (or São Caetano) (Saint Cajetan of the South. ) is a city in São Paulo state in Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. The population is 161,957 (2020 est.) in an area of 15.33 km2. It is the city with the highest per capita income in Brazil (US$31,322.00 in 2010) and it also has the highest Human Development Index. It is intensely conurbated with São Paulo, Santo André and São Bernardo do Campo, causing the physical limits between cities to be lost. São Caetano do Sul, together with Ferraz de Vasconcelos, is one of two cities in the state of São Paulo that are not crossed by any state or federal highway. History The region in which the municipality of São Caetano do Sul is today is occupied since the 16th century when it was known as Tijucuçu. It was an area of estates of residents of the former settlement, later villa (1553), of Santo André da Borda do Campo, extinguished by order of the governor-general Mem de Sá. In the seventeenth century a group of Benedictine monks formed in the region, donated by a farmer, the Monastery of Saint Benedict and the Tijucuçu Farm, used by the monks to raise cattle. In 1717, the monks began to erect the chapel dedicated to Saint Cajetan di Thiène (In Portuguese, São Caetano), the patron saint of bread and work, in the place where the Old Matrix of St. Caetano is today. They passed the farm to be called Farm of São Caetano do Tijucuçu, then São Caetano Farm. Around the farm was developed the district of São Caetano, in the same territory of the city of São Paulo. It was first enumerated in 1765, when the Morgado de Mateus determined that a census of the population of the Captaincy of São Paulo was made. Its inhabitants were farmers and tropeiros and they received the sacraments in the Chapel of São Caetano. In 1871, on the day after the Free Womb Law, the Order of Saint Benedict decided, in its General Chapter of Bahia, to free all of its slaves, in Brazil, more than four thousand, without any compensation. Deprived of labor, Farm São Caetano was expropriated by the Imperial Government to install the Colonial Nucleus of São Caetano on 28 July 1877. The lands of the farm were divided into lots and