A method for locating a rail vehicle with a rail vehicle position determination device on a route includes reading positions of reference marks, passed by the rail vehicle, along the route of the rail vehicle and evaluating additional distance information. In order to locate a rail vehicle with little expenditure and with comparatively high accuracy, in the case of a route with at least one track section bounded by axle counting sensor units and having an axle counting evaluator, information on the number of axles from the axle counting evaluator is transferred to the rail vehicle position determination device for determining the position of a rail vehicle. In the rail vehicle position determination device, the position of an axle of the rail vehicle corresponding to the information on the number of axles is determined using route topology data present there, and this position is used as a further reference mark.