A road environment recognizing apparatus includes an edge image generator, a first area extractor, and an object recognizer. The edge image generating unit generates an edge image by extracting edge points from an image of a road captured by a camera. The edge points have amounts of change in luminance from surroundings, which are higher than or equal to a predetermined value. The first area extractor extracts a first area from the edge image. The first area is partitioned by the edge points and has a luminance higher than the luminances of the surroundings. If a second area having a luminance lower than the luminances of the surroundings exists around the first area in the edge image, the object recognizer recognizes a projection on the road on the basis of a third area resulting from joining of the first area and the second area.