A time difference of arrival (TDOA) location scheme for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs) is presented. A novel TDOA estimation algorithm for OFDM signals is proposed and adopted in this scheme. The algorithm enhances the location performance by utilizing the information in the time and frequency domains obtained from the received location OFDM signals. The simulations are implemented with an 802.16e configuration considering an outdoor wireless scenario. The simulation results show that the scheme can meet the E911 requirements in even complex multipath channel conditions, and outperform the location schemes with traditional correlation detection TDOA estimations.