How to model a map?

[machete]

I need to make a virtual tour thruogh a map, already some friends gave me a map made in Arc View and I imported it into 3dMax 6. I wanted to put a camera and make the tour and then import that movie into Flash or Director. But the map is so difficult to handle in 3DMax, and a lot of detail gets lost, and it doesn´t have a sky or anything nice, its basically a ground modeled in 3d. So I want to add some details into it in order to get paid, and I think it is better to re-model the map. I have a jpeg of it to use for the top view as a reference. I tried making a plane, with a lot of divisions, and tried to make cuts where the ground is supposed to be at a lower level and then move the polygons in that area down a bit. This seems that it is going to be very long and don´t know how good it will look in the end.
I want to ask for some help on how to do this, if anyone has made a map in 3DMax6 maybe that could give me a hint on how to do this in a better way.
This is how it is looking so far:

This is the jpeg I have as a reference:

Thanks, I will apreciate any help.

[mayashu]

you can use spline to model the terain curbure by altitude