This work deals with the mapping of industrial excess heat recovery through district heating. In this paper a methodology to estimate industrial waste heat recovery in a given territory is presented and applied. The method is particularly suitable for a relatively large, but limited, geographical region, with a significant number of industrial facilities. The multiplicity of available methodologies to calculate heat recovery from industrial energy consumptions and the related input data variety generate a wide range of results. The intent is to handle the variety of results and to include the uncertainty related to input data quality thanks to the application of Multicriteria Decision Analysis techniques. The presented methodology is then applied to a real case study of new district heating project in Italy. The plan is to connect the city of Milano to a large CHP plant 25 km far, which is currently wasting 80% of its rejected heat. The aim of the case study is to quantify the industrial excess heat that could be recovered along the new district heating. The elaborated methodology has been applied to estimate the recoverable heat potential in five alternative paths and to find the one allowing maximum recovery. •Mapping of potential industrial excess heat recovery through district heating.•Multicriteria Decision Analysis technique used to handle input data uncertainty.•Application of the methodology to real case study in Italy.