Gesture recognition methods and systems are provided. First, a plurality of gesture templates are provided, wherein each gesture template defines a first gesture characteristic and a corresponding specific gesture. Then, a plurality of images is obtained, and a multi-background model is generated accordingly. At least one object image is obtained according to the multi-background model, wherein the object image includes at least an object having a plurality of edges. The included angles of any two adjacent edges of the object image are gathered as statistics to obtain a second gesture characteristic corresponding to the object image. The second gesture characteristic of the object image is compared with the first gesture characteristic of each gesture template. The specific gesture corresponding to the first gesture characteristic is obtained, when the second gesture characteristic is similar to the first gesture characteristic.