Provided is a method and apparatus for transmitting a reference signal by a base station in a multi-cell cooperative communication environment. The method for transmitting the reference signal according to the present invention comprises the steps of: transmitting cell ID information of a second cell to a terminal which uses a first cell as a serving cell; generating reference signal sequences in the first cell and the second cell on the basis of the same cell ID; and performing resource element mapping on each of the generated reference signals, generating signals, and transmitting the signals to the terminal, wherein the same cell ID used in generating the reference signal sequences is a cell ID of the first cell or a cell ID of the second cell.