Provided are a system message transmission method and device, which relate to the field of wireless communications. According to the system message transmission method, a system message is transmitted at a preset resource location; and a physical downlink channel is transmitted according to the system message. The system message may include at least one of: frequency domain location information of a system, configuration information of a physical shared channel carrying a system message, configuration information of terminal access, available resource information of the physical downlink channel, and radio frame information.