The invention provides a terrain display system on the basis of elevation tile data. The terrain display system comprises processors and storages. N digital elevation model data DEM={D<1>, D<2>, ...,D} which correspond to terrain (with the edge lengths W) of square regions are stored in the storages; the resolution of the D is represented as m, in other words, the digital elevation modeldata include m*m elevation data E=(x, y, z), the x and the y represent coordinates of the left upper corners of regions represented by the elevation data E, the z represents altitude values ofthe elevation data E, values of the i can range from 1 to n, and the m<1>, the m<2>, ..., the m meet an inequality of (m<1>) (m<2>)<...<(m); the D is further divided into x*x elevationtiles, and the resolution of each elevation tile is equal to m/x. The terrain display system has the advantage that computer programs can be executed by the processors, so that the terrain can be displayed by the terrain display system.