Embodiments of the present invention disclose methods and devices for allocating and detecting downlink control channel resources. The method for allocating downlink control channel resources comprises: allocating a resource area for enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel, ePDCCH, localized transmission in a UE-specific way; and allocating at most one ePDCCH candidate for the ePDCCH localized transmission in each resource allocation granularity within the resource area. According to the embodiments of the present invention, the ePDCCH candidates at each aggregation level are distributed to radio resources sparsely so that sufficient options can be provided for resource allocation.