The invention relates to an obstacle detection method and an obstacle detection device. The method for detecting a presence of an obstacle to a vehicle using a sensor mounted on the vehicle comprises setting a movable area which is a surrounding area of the vehicle and in which the vehicle can move, arranging plural unconfirmed bodies over an entire area of the movable area as obstacle candidates as an initial state, wherein the unconfirmed bodies have the characteristics that a standard moving-body model is stored in a model database, the standard moving-body model has special behavior characteristics so as to predict the behavior of the moving body which is the obstacle to the vehicle; and deleting the obstacle candidate which is determined not to be actually present as a result of detection by the sensor from the obstacle candidates arranged as the initial state, and preserving the actually present obstacle of which the presence is detected by the sensor and obstacle candidates arranged in a shielded portion, wherein the sensor can not detect the obstacle in the shielded portion.