Receiving significant support from China's government and enterprises in themobile communication industry federation, Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) has become the fastest growing 3G technology standard in China. Since TD-SCDMA has adopted some key techniques, such as Time Division Duplex (TDD), joint detection, uplink synchronisation, Smart Antenna (SA), dynamical channel allocation and baton handover, the radio network design issues are distinguished from WCDMA and cdma2000. In this paper, the key techniques and issues impacting on TD-SCDMA radio network planning are introduced. The advanced radio network design issues, such as capacity planning, coverage planning, scrambling code planning, N frequency planning, inter-system interference cancellation and Radio Resource Management (RRM) schemes, are investigated. Particular planning strategies are also proposed, which include the network evolution architecture design and the base station co-sites design. Finally, some challenges for TD-SCDMA commercial deployments are presented.