Mountainous piece of land to the east and south (5)
I believe the answer is:
andes
'mountainous piece' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both natural objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'land to the east and south' is the wordplay.
'land' becomes 'and' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to the east' becomes 'E' (abbreviation).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'south' becomes 's' (abbreviation).
'and'+'e'+'s'='ANDES'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for andes that I've seen before include "Mountains for the Danes, oddly" , "danes found in mountains" , "Mountains of 6 dn" , "South American mountain range" , "Aconcagua the highest in this range" .)