The present invention provides methods for transmitting and receiving a control channel, a base station, and a user equipment. The method for transmitting a control channel includes: determining m PRB pairs used for transmitting a control channel to be transmitted; when a distributed transmission mode is used for transmission, determining an aggregation level L of the control channel to be transmitted; determining, according to the aggregation level L, a first control channel candidate at the aggregation level L; and placing, on physical resources to which the first control channel candidate is mapped, control information of the control channel to be transmitted, and transmitting the control information. The present invention improves multiplexing efficiency of control channels of different modes.