Geography of South America Great American Interchange. The Andes, likewise a comparatively young and seismically restless mountain range, runs down the western edge of the continent; the land to the east of the northern Andes is largely tropical rain forest, the vast Amazon River basin. The continent also contains drier regions such as eastern Patagonia and the extremely arid Atacama desert. The South American continent also includes various islands, most of which belong to countries on the continent. The Caribbean territories are grouped with North America. The South American nations that border the Caribbean Sea—including Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana—are also known
Continent smallest continent. Earth's major landmasses all have coasts on a single, continuous World Ocean, which is divided into a number of principal oceanic components by the continents and various geographic criteria. The most restricted meaning of "continent" is that of a continuous area of land or mainland, with the coastline and any land boundaries forming the edge of the continent. In this sense the term "continental Europe" (sometimes referred to in Britain as "the Continent") is used to refer to mainland Europe, excluding islands such as Great Britain, Ireland, Malta and Iceland, and the term "continent of Australia" may refer