Most houses have a visible chimney.
Those that do not, will have some sort of pipe sticking out of the roof or a wall on the side of the house.
Chimneys stand higher than most roofs and are very necessary even if a house does not have a fireplace.
Chimneys serve a major function in the health of a house. They are the exit route, to the outside, for the noxious by products from a working furnace or water heater. This keeps the interior of a house free from the potentially deadly emissions given off of the fuel your heating system uses - natural gas, oil, coal, wood - they all give off a byproduct when burned to warm your home.
If a house has a fireplace in addition to a furnace, there could be two chimneys. One for the fireplace and one for the furnace. But sometimes one chimney can serve both the fireplace and the furnace, by having separate flues (passageways).
To ensure a chimney will have a longer life, it is best that there is a chimney cap to prevent rain/snow/moisture from doing damage to the interior of a chimney. Also it is a good idea to have a cap to keep birds and other critters out, which prevents them from making a cozy nest inside a chimney.
Until I became a homeowner, I never really thought much about chimneys. I just looked at them as part of any house. Yes, I understood about fireplaces having a chimney, but I did not correlate a chimney with a furnace.
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