Target recognition algorithm based on two-dimensional (2D) wavelet transform for laser imaging radar is put forward. Firstly 2D wavelet transform of range image of laser imaging radar targets is made; then singular value feature is extracted from approximate part and detail part, gene algorithm is used to optimize parameters of support vector machine (SVM) intelligently; at last, SVM is used to recognize three kinds of ground targets. Simulation experiment shows that, compared with the method which directly uses singular value feature of range image to recognize targets, the average recogniton rate is raised by 3.2% at high carrier-noise radio (CNR) of 20 dB and average recogniton rate is raised by 6.5% at low CNR of 10 dB in this method, and good recognition is gained.