PARKING ASSISTANCE DEVICE AND PARKING ASSISTANCE METHOD

This parking assistance device can perform parking assistance that is easily understood by a driver by means of real-time image information displayed at a display device in a vehicle. In the device, a vehicle-in-question position detection unit (41) detects the position of the vehicle in question on the basis of GPS data acquired from a GPS receiver (3). An aerial photograph recording unit (43) records aerial photographs corresponding to the position of the vehicle in question. A peripheral object detection unit (42) produces a distance map on the basis of distance measurement data indicating the distance between a peripheral object and the vehicle in question obtained by a distance measurement sensor (2) mounted in the vehicle in question scanning the periphery. A peripheral map generation unit (44) updates past aerial photographs obtained from the aerial photograph recording unit (43) on the basis of the distance map, producing the latest peripheral map. The display device (5) displays the latest peripheral map at a screen.