A method and apparatus for recognizing a character area in an image are provided. A specific embodiment of the method comprises: acquiring color values and position information of pixel points in a to-be-recognized image; clustering the pixel points based on the color values of the pixel points, the color values of the pixel points in each pixel point category being identical or similar; determining, for each category of clustered pixel points, outlines of connected regions including the pixel points in each category of pixel points, to obtain an outline set; and merging, based on the color values and the position information of the outlines in the outline set, the outlines, to obtain character areas in the image. The embodiment has improved the accuracy of recognizing character lines in recognizing characters in an image.