A fault region searching based fault location algorithm for the distribution system is proposed， which asks for installation of current measuring elements in only a limited number of nodes. Firstly， the fault-selected section is determined through the coordination between Agents. Then the impedance-based algorithm is performed for the fault-selected section in the corresponding Agent. If the fault-selected section is upstream of distributed generation（DG）， the algorithm is executed in the master station Agent using local measurements and DG-related measurements. If the fault-selected section is downstream of DG， the algorithm is executed in the line execution Agent using the local measurements only. The method proposed is applicable to the distribution system with plenty of branches and is remarkable in calculating speed. At the same time， the method does not need plenty of remote data transmission. A simulation model based on MATLAB is developed to verify the algorithm and the results show that the algorithm proposed is accurate enough even in the condition of high fault resistance.