MSFS Italy 20 M Terrain Mesh (DEM) Scenery

Expert Overview

This expert-level terrain mesh mod for Microsoft Flight Simulator dramatically elevates Italy’s topography by integrating 20-meter resolution DEM data. Developed by Chris, it refines mountain peaks, valleys, and coastlines with data sources like TINITALY and EU-DEM, resulting in more authentic contours compared to the default mesh. Having tested it myself, I can confirm it delivers a more convincing visual depth, especially across rugged regions in the north and along the intricate shorelines of Sicily and Sardinia.

By covering the entire country—north, south, and outlying islands—this scenery update offers a cohesive upgrade that shines in VFR flying, low-altitude navigation, and scenic tours. Minor blending issues or “spikes” at peak elevations have been noted, but they don’t detract from the overall enhanced realism. This mod’s ability to make Italy’s diverse landscapes pop on-screen is unquestionably appealing for dedicated MSFS enthusiasts.

This mod was installed, tested and reviewed by Adam McEnroe for Fly Away Simulation. Adam is an FS mod expert. Read his bio here.

This pack by the developer who simply goes by the name of Chris brings the mesh terrain (DEM - digital elevation models) data up to much higher resolution for the entire country of Italy.

This pack is compatible with Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) 2020 release.  The DEM data in this pack is much improved on the Microsoft default and mountains, valleys, and shorelines look much closer to their real-world counterpart.

DEM data (or mesh as many legacy FS users will know it) is the information that is below the photoreal scenery you see below you.  It's what defines the heights, depths, and details of the terrain the photoreal data it "wrapped around".

The entire country of Italy is included, from the far north right down to the lower south regions.  Also many of the islands such as Sicily, Sardina are included as well as many more. 

Some of the regions included are;

• Abruzzo
• Basilicata
• Calabria
• Campania
• Emilia-Romagna
• Friuli-Venezia Giulia
• Latium (Lazio)
• Liguria
• Lombardia
• Marche
• Molise
• Piemonte
• Puglia (Apulia)
• Sardegna (Sardinia)
• Sicilia (Sicily)
• Toscana (Tuscany)
• Trentino-Alto Adige(Trentino-South Tyrol )
• Umbria
• Valle d'Aosta(Aosta Valley )
• Veneto

This pack brings a 20-meter resolution data to increase the resolution of the default MSFS DEM scenery.

Coverage Area

Below you can find an image of the coverage of this DEM scenery upgrade.

?

The developer has stated some know issues

• Edges of covered areas don't blend to the original in-game/bing DEM
• Peak elevations might have small "spikes"
• Sub-optimal file size

There will be improvements to this mesh in future updates.  Bookmark this page to stay updated.

Installation

Unzip the archive and copy the folder ItalyDEM from the extracted archive in your MSFS community folder.

Credits issued by the developer for the data included in the release

• DEM10 by TINITALY
• Tarquini S., Isola I., Favalli M., Battistini A. (2007) TINITALY, a digital elevation model of Italy with a 10 m-cell size (Version 1.0) [Data set]. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
• DEM25 by EU-DEM v1.1 - Copernicus data and information policy Regulation (EU)

License

The developer has released this pack under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Developer: Chris.