1. An image recognition device for extracting a region of a vehicle number plate from an image, the image recognition device comprising: an edge direction evaluation unit configured to evaluate a direction of an edge at each coordinate by assigning points to the coordinate when a deviation amount between a direction of an outline of an abundance ratio higher than a predetermined abundance ratio threshold value among directions of an outline of a character available for the vehicle number plate and the direction of the edge at each coordinate of the image is less than a predetermined deviation amount threshold value; and a vehicle number plate region extraction unit configured to extract the region of the vehicle number plate from the image based on a distribution of the points assigned by the edge direction evaluation unit.