The invention relates to a pipeline leakage recognizing and positioning system and method based on sound wave imaging. The pipeline leakage recognizing and positioning system and method are mainly characterized in that the system comprises pipeline infrasonic wave sensors, digitalizers, direct-current voltage stabilizing power sources and a monitoring server; the pipeline infrasonic wave sensors are arranged at the two ends of a measured pipeline respectively, and sensing heads of the pipeline infrasonic wave sensors are in complete contact with a medium in the pipeline and immersed in the medium in the pipeline through open holes in the measured pipeline; the pipeline infrasonic wave sensors upload measured signals to the monitoring server through the digitalizers; and the monitoring server calculates a sound and image graph for sound pressure distribution in the part, between the two pipeline infrasonic wave sensors, of the pipeline according to the measured signals uploaded by the two digitalizers, and the position and strength of a leakage sound source are recognized on the sound and image graph. According to the pipeline leakage recognizing and positioning system and method based on sound wave imaging, leakage is recognized based on the stability of the sound and image graph according to the wideband characteristic of leaking sounds, the accuracy of leakage recognition is improved and reaches more than 95%, the rate of false alarms is lower than 5%, the leakage process can be reflected, and the leakage flow is estimated.