To address the challenges of accurately identifying the wavefront of travelling waves over long transmission distances and precisely determining the wave propagation velocity, a traveling-wave network fault location method based on virtual fault waveform matching is proposed. First, the propagation characteristics of traveling waves in transmission networks are analyzed, and equivalent models are established for each stage of the propagation process. An improved depth first search (DFS) algorithm is utilized to identify the traveling wave propagation path from any fault location to the measurement points. Based on the obtained path information, a traveling-wave propagation model is constructed. Using the concept of dynamic virtual faults, the model simulates the virtual fault traveling-wave waveforms at each measurement point. Finally, an adaptive matching method between virtual and actual fault traveling waveforms is proposed, constructing a matching index to quantify the differences between the virtual and actual fault locations. PSCAD simulation results verify that the proposed method eliminates the need to calibrate the initial wavefront arrival time, reduces wave velocity errors, and achieves accurate fault location.