A location method and system are provided for obtaining a location of a terminal. The location method comprises, when a gateway mobile location center is unable to obtain an address of a mobile switching center (MSC) to which the terminal belongs from a home location register (HLR) in a core network by sending location selecting routing signaling, after sending short message type information to trigger the home location register to update the location of the terminal and obtaining the address of the MSC to which the terminal belongs, the gateway mobile location center obtaining location parameters of the terminal by sending location request signaling, and calculating location information of the terminal.