Situated in the north east corner of the South American continent, Venezuela is bordered to the north by the Caribbean, to the east by Guyana and the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by Brazil, and to the west and southwest by Columbia. The country consists of four distinctive regions: the Venezuelan Highlands in the west; the Maracaibo Lowlands in the northwest; the vast central plain of Los Llanos around the Orinoco River; and the Guyana region in the extreme south, which includes part of the Amazon rainforest and the Guyana highlands. Various parts of Venezuela, including Caracas and the eastern part of Sucre are vulnerable to earthquakes, although there have been no serious ones for many years.