Learn Italian: Qui c'è una piazza famosa. - There is a famous square here.

c'è is a combination of ci (there) and è (is). Because è starts with a vowel, the i in ci is dropped and replaced with an apostrophe. We use c'è to say 'there is' for a single thing, like una piazza (a square).

Since c'è means 'there is', isn't saying Qui c'è redundant?

Not at all! The ci in c'è is just a grammatical piece needed to say 'there exists' in a general sense. Adding qui gives the actual physical location, so Qui c'è means 'Here there is' or 'There is [something] here'.

Why is qui (here) at the beginning of the sentence?

In Italian, location words like qui are often placed at the start of a sentence to set the scene. It literally translates to 'Here there is a famous square,' which is a very common and natural word order in Italian.

Why does famosa come after piazza?

In Italian, descriptive adjectives like famosa (famous) usually come right after the noun they describe. Notice that both words end in -a because piazza is a feminine singular noun, so the adjective must match its gender and number.