A method and an apparatus for selecting a public land mobile network (PLMN) for a mobile station are provided. The method and the apparatus according to this invention use the first and the second system information included in the broadcasting information broadcasted by a base station to find out all of the base stations belonging to the same PLMN as that base station in the base station table, and group those base stations belonging to the same PLMN as a base station group. The method and the apparatus according to this invention only need to synchronize with one base station in a base station group, and the other base stations belonging to the same base station group as that base station are known. Accordingly, the selection method according to this invention can substantially reduce the time for selecting a PLMN and improve the corresponding efficiency.