A positioning method includes separately sending, by a terminal, a request for obtaining assistance data to a serving base station and a neighboring cell base station; separately receiving, by the terminal, assistance data from the serving base station and the neighboring cell base station; identifying, by the terminal based on the assistance data, reference signals received from the serving base station and the neighboring cell base station; calculating, by the terminal, a time difference of arrival based on times at which the reference signals arrive at the terminal; and sending, by the terminal, the time difference to a server using an application layer protocol, to enable the server to calculate location information of the terminal.