Aiming at solving the localisation problems in wireless sensor networks with weak adaptability, high dependence on the network environment and imperfect position accuracy, an improved Distance Vector-Hop (DV-Hop) algorithm is presented in this paper. In the improved algorithm, network communication costs and packet collision probability are reduced because the original whole network flooding is replaced by the local flooding. By using the contribution factor, the anchor node groups are optimised and the initial estimation coordinates are corrected. Our experiments are implemented in the uniformly distributed network, C-shaped network and O-shaped network. The simulation results showed that the improved DV-Hop algorithm has better performances than traditional DV-Hop algorithms.