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.

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.

The first group of families settled in the nucleus had embarked in the port of Genoa and arrived in Brazil on the Italian ship Europa.

In 1947, in a movement led by the Jornal de São Caetano, a list of 5,197 signatures was made and sent to the State Legislative Assembly, requesting a plebiscite.

[6] São Caetano do Sul is located on a plateau that is part of the Serra do Mar (Portuguese for "Sea Range"), part of the vast region known as the Brazilian Highlands, with an average elevation of around 800 meters (2,600 ft) above sea level – though at a distance of only about 70 kilometers (43 mi) from the Atlantic Ocean.

Main nationalities of origin of immigrants living in São Caetano: Italian, Spanish, Arabic, African, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Hungarian.

Some examples are the industries located on the border with São Paulo, and the General Motors headquarters in Brazil, on Goiás Avenue, the main financial center of the city.

Commerce is also a strong economic target for the city, which houses the headquarters of the Casas Bahia store chain, founded in 1952 by the Jewish immigrant Samuel Klein.

With the real estate growth in the region, a number of developments were created, among them Moov Espaço Cerâmica, which contributed to the generation of jobs in the city's civil construction.

[citation needed] São Caetano do Sul boasts the highest social indicators anywhere in the country (even if using indexes such as those that compute the HDI formula).

There is also one commuter train line (operated by CPTM) that connects the city to São Paulo and its neighbors to the south, Santo André and Mauá.

Immigrants from many nationalities have settled in São Caetano but the most significant groups are those of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Japanese ancestry.