A hillshade is one of the most immediately satisfying things you can make in QGIS. It takes a digital elevation model, a grid of height values that looks like a dull grey smear on its own, and turns it into a shaded relief map where mountains, valleys and ridges jump off the screen. The effect comes from simulating a light source, usually the sun low in the north-west, and shading each pixel according to how much light its slope would catch.

The best part is that the data is free. Global elevation models such as SRTM at 30 metres, ALOS at 30 metres and the Copernicus DEM at 30 metres cover most of the planet and can be downloaded without paying anything. If you have already downloaded a DEM for another project, you can reuse it. The whole process, from loading the raster to a finished map, takes about five minutes once you know where the buttons are.

Get a DEM and load it into QGIS

Start with a digital elevation model for your area of interest. The Copernicus DEM is a good default: it is freely available, covers most land areas at 30-metre resolution, and has fewer voids than SRTM in steep terrain. Download the tiles covering your study area, load them into QGIS, and if you have more than one tile, mosaic them into a single raster first so the hillshade has no seams.

Check the DEM's coordinate reference system before you go further. Hillshade calculations assume the horizontal and vertical units match, so if your DEM is in a geographic CRS such as WGS84, where horizontal units are degrees and vertical units are metres, the result can look wrong. The fix is simple: reproject the DEM into a projected CRS such as UTM for your area, where both horizontal and vertical units are metres, and the shading will come out correctly.

Run the Hillshade tool

QGIS has a dedicated Hillshade tool in the Processing Toolbox under Raster terrain analysis, and also in the Raster menu under Analysis. Open it, select your DEM as the input layer, and look at the three settings that matter. Azimuth is the compass direction of the simulated sun, and the default of 315 degrees, north-west, is the cartographic convention because our brains read north-west light as raised terrain and south-east light as sunken.

The Z factor scales the elevation values, and it matters when your horizontal and vertical units differ. If your DEM is in a projected CRS with metres in both directions, leave it at 1. If you skipped the reprojection step and your DEM is still in degrees, a Z factor of roughly 0.00001 compensates, but reprojecting is the cleaner fix. Run the tool and a new shaded raster appears: bright on north-west-facing slopes, dark on south-east-facing slopes, and flat grey on level ground.

Make the hillshade look good on a map

A raw hillshade is a greyscale raster, and on its own it is useful but plain. The professional trick is to combine it with a colour ramp of the elevation itself. Load the DEM underneath, apply a colour ramp such as a hypsometric tint from green lowlands through yellow to brown highlands, then place the hillshade layer on top and set its blending mode to Multiply.

Two settings make the biggest difference to the final look. First, adjust the transparency of the hillshade layer to around 40 to 60 percent if the shading overwhelms the colours. Second, experiment with the sun's azimuth and altitude: a lower sun angle exaggerates small features such as gullies and terraces, which is useful for archaeology or geomorphology, while a higher sun gives a cleaner, more general-purpose map.

What hillshades are actually used for

Hillshades are far more than decoration. Field teams use them to plan routes, because a ridge or a steep valley is obvious in shaded relief and invisible in a flat elevation ramp. Hydrologists use them to spot drainage patterns and watershed boundaries before running a formal analysis. Archaeologists use low-angle hillshades to find ancient field boundaries, burial mounds and earthworks that are invisible on the ground and barely visible in aerial photos.

There are limits to be aware of. A hillshade shows shape, not height: two hills of very different elevation can look identical if their slopes are similar, which is why combining it with a colour ramp or contour lines matters. Very flat terrain produces almost no shading, and very noisy elevation data produces a speckled result that needs smoothing first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Which free DEM is best for making a hillshade?

A: The Copernicus DEM at 30 metres is a good default for most areas, with fewer gaps than SRTM. ALOS is another solid option. The differences are small for a basic hillshade, so use whichever covers your area.

Q: Why does my hillshade look wrong or flat?

A: The most common cause is a CRS mismatch: a DEM in degrees with elevations in metres needs reprojecting into a projected CRS, or a corrected Z factor, before the shading calculates correctly.

Q: What azimuth and altitude should I use for a hillshade?

A: The cartographic defaults are an azimuth of 315 degrees, from the north-west, and an altitude of 45 degrees. Lower the altitude to around 25 degrees to exaggerate subtle relief.