Abstract: This study presents an algorithm based on edge statistical characteristics and morphology for license plate detection in images. The proposed method is highly efficient using edge statistical characteristics. The method is subdivided into four steps. Firstly, the proposed method is majorly characterized with vertical edging, as several numbers of license plate may resemble vertical lines like a 1D barcode. Next, the edges are statistically analyzed; then, license plate is hieratically located and finally, the license plate is extracted from image by morphology. The proposed algorithm accurately and rapidly locates license plates. The 9786 of 9825 license plate images in a real database were identified with the accuracy of 99.6%.