Knowing the positions of nodes in sensor networks are essential for many applications. In this paper, we propose a new method, MDS-MAP(R), that determines the relative positions of nodes based on local distance information. Given a communication path between a starting node and a remote node, the nodes on the path .rst compute their local relative maps based on local distance estimates in a distributed fashion, using the MDS-MAP method. Then, the relative maps of adjacent nodes along the path are aligned based on their common nodes and their optimal linear transformation parameters are computed. Finally, the relative position of the remote node in the coordinate system of the starting node is determined by applying the sequence of linear transformations. The method can easily be extended from the single-path peer-to-peer communication situation to other types of communications such as multicasting or broadcasting. The accuracy of relative position estimation is affected by several factors, including the network connectivity, the errors of local distance measures, the length of the path, and the number of common nodes of two adjacent relative maps. Through simulation, we analyze the effect of these factors on the position estimation errors. We show that the new method performs well on both regular and irregular networks when there is sufficient connectivity and the distance measurement errors are small.