A method and an apparatus for recognizing a descriptive attribute of an appearance feature include obtaining a location feature of an appearance feature of a target image to determine a location of a part of an object in a preset object model indicated by the appearance feature, where the location feature of the appearance feature indicates the location of the part of the object in the preset object model indicated by the appearance feature, recognizing a target region based on the location feature, where the target region includes the part of the object, performing feature analysis on the target region, recognizing a descriptive attribute of the appearance feature of the object, and determining the location feature of the appearance feature having a local attribute.