Subgrid parameterizations are used in coarse‐scale meteorological and land surface models to account for the impact of unresolved topography on wind speed. While various parameterizations have been suggested, these were generally validated on a limited number of measurements in specific geographical areas. We used high‐resolution wind fields to investigate which terrain parameters most affect near‐surface wind speed over complex topography under neutral conditions. Wind fields were simulated using the Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) on Gaussian random fields as model topographies to cover a wide range of terrain characteristics. We computed coarse‐scale wind speed, i.e., a spatial average over the large grid cell accounting for influence of unresolved topography, using a previously suggested subgrid parameterization for the sky view factor. We only require correlation length of subgrid topographic features and mean square slope in the coarse grid cell. Computed coarse‐scale wind speed compared well with domain‐averaged ARPS wind speed. To further statistically downscale coarse‐scale wind speed, we use local, fine‐scale topographic parameters, namely, the Laplacian of terrain elevations and mean square slope. Both parameters showed large correlations with fine‐scale ARPS wind speed. Comparing downscaled numerical weather prediction wind speed with measurements from a large number of stations throughout Switzerland resulted in overall improved correlations and distribution statistics. Since we used a large number of model topographies to derive the subgrid parameterization and the downscaling framework, both are not scale dependent nor bound to a specific geographic region. Both can readily be implemented since they are based on easy to derive terrain parameters.