A vehicle license-plate locating algorithm is proposed based on the morphology, color and projection features of license-plates. The algorithm uses edge detection and mathematical morphology to locate candidate regions and filter noise, basing on the fact that the license-plate region contains abundant edges. Further screening is then performed by sorting the centroids and identifying the colors of the candidate regions. Finally, restore the incomplete license-plate image using projection method and valley-value analysis, so as to obtain the accurate license-plate location. Experimental results show that the efficiency and accuracy of the algorithm is related to the definition and exposure of the vehicle images and the sizes of the license-plates. Compared to the traditional algorithm, the efficiency and accuracy has been improved 15% and 20% separately.