Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a method and apparatus for positioning an autonomous vehicle. The method includes: matching a current point cloud projected image of a first resolution with a map of the first resolution to generate a first histogram filter based on the matching result; determining at least two first response areas in the first histogram filter based on a probability value of an element in the first histogram filter; generating a second histogram filter based on a result of matching a current point cloud projected image of a second resolution with a map of the second resolution and the at least two first response areas, the first resolution being less than the second resolution; and calculating a weighted average of probability values of target elements in the second histogram filter to determine a positioning result of the autonomous vehicle in the map of the second resolution.