When you play a land, it moves directly from your hand to the battlefield without ever going on the stack. This is explicitly stated in CR 305.1: 'To play a land, a player puts it onto the battlefield from his or her hand.' Lands are not spells, so the rules that govern casting spells (and using the stack) simply do not apply to the act of playing a land.
Because the land never goes on the stack, opponents have no window to respond to the land play itself — there is nothing on the stack to counter or target. Cards like Counterspell, which counter spells, cannot counter a land being played for exactly this reason (CR 305.3: 'A player can normally play one land per turn... Playing a land is a special action; it doesn't use the stack.').
However, once the land is on the battlefield, any triggered or replacement effects that care about permanents entering the battlefield do function normally. For example, if you have a Panharmonicon and play a land with an enters-the-battlefield triggered ability, those triggers go on the stack after the land has already entered — but the land entry itself was never on the stack.
Concrete example: You play a Stomping Ground. Your opponent cannot tap two lands and cast Counterspell to stop it — there is nothing on the stack to counter. The Stomping Ground simply enters the battlefield immediately as a special action (CR 116.2b).
Note: effects that put a land onto the battlefield (e.g., Rampant Growth) are a different matter — those are spells that use the stack, but the land placement itself still does not; the land just enters as part of the spell's resolution.
Unofficial fan resource — not affiliated with or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. Answers are AI-generated estimates grounded in the Comprehensive Rules and are not a substitute for an official judge. Verify anything match-critical.