A license plate recognition system and method recognizes a license plate attached to a vehicle and bears a license plate number. The system includes a database module, a reducing module, an image capturing unit, a sorting unit, and a recognizing module. The database module stores license plate position sample type-related data and license plate number sample type-related data whose quantity is reducible by the reducing module. The image capturing unit captures license plate images at different imaging resolutions to generate license plate position image eigenvalue and license plate number image eigenvalue. The sorting unit computes the license plate position image eigenvalue to generate license plate position type-related data and computes the license plate number image eigenvalue to generate license plate number type-related data. The recognizing module compares the license plate number type-related data with the license plate number sample type-related data, thereby recognizing the license plate number.