According to one embodiment, a vehicle detection apparatus includes a line segment extraction unit, candidate creation unit, evaluation unit, and specific part detection unit, and the line segment extraction unit extracts a plurality of line-segment components constituting an image of a vehicle from the image formed by photographing the vehicle. The candidate creation unit carries out polygonal approximation configured to create a closed loop by using a plurality of line-segment components to create a plurality of candidates for an area of a specific part of the vehicle. The evaluation unit carries out a plurality of different evaluations for each of the plurality of candidates. Further, the specific part detection unit detects one of the plurality of candidates as the specific part based on evaluation results of the evaluation unit.