Caravelas is a city of about 20,000 inhabitants in southern Bahia, Brazil, a few miles above the mouth of the Caravelas River.
Caravelas was founded in 1581 by Portuguese settlers. It was once the centre of a flourishing whale fishery. It is the port of the Bahia & Minas railway pt.[2] Caravelas is the nearest town to the uninhabited Abrolhos Archipelago.[3]
The city contains part of the Cassurubá Extractive Reserve, a 100,768 hectares (249,000 acres) sustainable use conservation unit that protects an area of mangroves, river and sea where shellfish are harvested.[4]