Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): En la plaza hay una fuente enorme rodeada de palmeras. - In the plaza there is a huge fountain surrounded by palm trees.

Hay is the impersonal form of haber used to express existence—“there is” or “there are.” It doesn’t agree in number; whether what follows is singular or plural, you always say hay. Here it tells us that a huge fountain exists in the plaza.

Why use hay instead of está to say something is in a place?

Use hay when you want to introduce or point out the existence of something: “there is/are.”
By contrast, estar (e.g. La fuente está en la plaza) locates or describes something already known.
So Hay una fuente en la plaza focuses on the fact that the fountain exists there, not just where it is.

Why is the article una used instead of la before fuente enorme?

Because the fountain is being mentioned for the first time, it’s new information to the listener. Indefinite articles (un, una) introduce something unknown or not previously specified. If you’d already talked about that specific fountain, you could switch to la fuente enorme.

Why does the adjective enorme come after the noun fuente? Could you say una enorme fuente?

In Spanish, descriptive adjectives typically follow the noun: fuente enorme is the neutral, most common order.
You can say una enorme fuente, but placing the adjective before the noun adds a touch of emphasis or stylistic flair, almost like “what a huge fountain!”

There’s no que or estar before rodeada—is that correct?

Yes. Rodeada de palmeras is a reduced relative clause (a past participle phrase functioning as an adjective).
It’s equivalent to saying que está rodeada de palmeras, but Spanish often drops que está for brevity:
“Hay una fuente enorme [que está] rodeada de palmeras.”

Why is de used after rodeada?

With rodear (to surround), Spanish uses rodear de + [things] to indicate what’s doing the surrounding.
Thus rodeada de palmeras = “surrounded by palm trees.”

Why is rodeada feminine and singular?

Adjectives (including past participles used adjectivally) must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.
Here, fuente is feminine singular, so rodeada takes the feminine-singular ending “-a.”

Can I place en la plaza at the end instead of the beginning?

Absolutely. You could say:
“Hay una fuente enorme rodeada de palmeras en la plaza.”
Fronting En la plaza makes the location your speech’s starting point; moving it to the end shifts the focus onto the fountain first, then names its location.

Why is palmeras plural?

Because the phrase implies more than one palm tree surrounds the fountain. If it were a single palm, you’d say rodeada de una palmera, but most plazas use several palms, so the plural palmeras is natural.