In order to improve an identification accuracy of a backlit number plate in a vehicle identification method and device which recognize a vehicle number from a number plate of a vehicle whose image is taken, an image frame of a vehicle is taken by an interlace method, irradiation is performed in an odd field and an even field composing the image frame with light of light quantities different from each other, images of the odd field and the even field are captured, and character recognition processing, only when character recognition processing of a number plate area extracted from an image of one field has ended in failure, of a number plate area extracted from an image of the other field is performed. Also, character recognition processings of number plate areas extracted from the images of the odd field and the even field respectively are performed in parallel, and a result of character recognition processing, only when character recognition processing of a number plate area extracted from an image of one field has ended in failure, of a number plate area extracted from an image of the other field, is adopted as an identification result of the vehicle.