Chavantes is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The population is 12,418 (2020 est.) in an area of . The elevation is . Location Chavantes is a city in the southwestern part of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, that borders the city of Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo to the north; Timburi and Ribeirão Claro in the state of Paraná to the south, which is separated from São Paulo state by the Paranapanema River; Ipaussu to the east: and Canitar, which previously belonged to its municipality; and Ourinhos the seat of its comarca to the west. Name and History The town was established as the district of Irapé within the municipality of Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo in 1909. In 1917 its name was changed into Xavantes, after a nearby railway station, which in turn was named after the Native American Xavante tribe. In 1923 it became an independent municipality. The name spelling was changed into Chavantes in 1982. The railway was soon transferred further northwest with connections with Ourinhos, which despite being founded later than Chavantes, became more prominent, perhaps due to its strategic situation closer to the great Northern Paraná coffee farms. Chavantes became officially autonomous on December 4, 1922, but its exploration history goes back to the 1870s and probably before that, with the Portuguese Bandeiras settling campaigns that sought to expand Portuguese lands beyond the Tordesilhas Treaty landmark with Spanish America, while attempting to enslave the Natives in a colonialist search for precious stones. Large family of farmers eventually settled in the area, destroying entire forests to open way for farming. Today an important state road named after Raposo Tavares, a Bandeirante, passes near the town. The Bandeirantes did not find the treasures they coveted, but the region's red soil was proved to be amongst the most fertile in the world and the subtropical to temperate weather just right for any type of plantation. With the advent of coffee, São Paulo soon became a major producer and its main crop was named "Ouro Verde" (lit. "green gold"). As a result, Chavantes still has a social club called "Ouro Verde," previously destined to its coffee farmers elite only and where a "Queen of Coffee" pageant contest happened every year until the late 1960s. With the abolition of slavery in 1888 and an attempt of Brazil's government to "bleach" its ethnic composition which