Some notes or tips.
What I usually do is find the place in some mapping program (google earth, google maps, elevation topical maps to get me the latitude and longitude and then I paste them into venhola and adjust the map (i.e. move north/south/east/west or adjust/flip the venhola map to or where I want the battle to take depict), usually this is based on the historical reference point based on the scenario or/and from which point the attacker may be coming, in this case the Japanese were coming right up the north road so I had to flip it, since in SP player one is on the left and player two is on the right (this is critical for scenario design, reinforcements/routing, etc.).
Lastly, I set the parameters to download the venhola map like so:
You'll notice that I changed all the defaults (I already have maps created/tweaked, etc in slots prior to 701 and I used part of my scenario template for this scenario in the map text, because when you generate a lot of these maps, you need to remind yourself what each one is, in this case for this map, 699 was level 10 the default, but that did not work for the water, so I tried 5, 3 and then 1 to get the water filling right, I'll kill off the other two maps, eventually to clean up my maps directory, also I'll generate 3-9 maps for my scenario packs, each one in a different location in the world and come back and work on them at different times and need a way to remember what the heck I generated the map for in the first place, lol).
Then I go through using the venhola map in its default mapping view to set up the roads, stopping to fill in any rivers, ponds, streams, coastal areas or any obvious terrain features first, then finish out the road systems, and any other noticeable features in this view.
The basic 'paved' road and a small village (I ignore the village the first time round):
In this one, I did the coast line first and then came back and filled in the swamps, and major roads for the 'village' (remember this satellite image is from today and my scenario is from 80 years ago, so a little imagination is needed):
Then, I toggled the venhola map, and then I it to use satellite imagery and changed the hex grid color (to better see stuff) and zoomed in. Now this is on my monitor 2.
And then over in monitor 1, I have the extended map editor open and I am just simply painting in what is on the venhola map.
You do have to use a little imagination because things are not always 1 to 1.
Hope this helps.