A method and apparatus are provided for transmitting a synchronization signal for cell search in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communications system. The method includes identifying a primary synchronization sequence; identifying a secondary synchronization sequence associated with a cell identifier; mapping the primary synchronization sequence based on center subcarriers in a first OFDM symbol; mapping the secondary synchronization sequence based on the center subcarriers in a second OFDM symbol; transmitting the mapped primary synchronization sequence in the first OFDM symbol; and transmitting the mapped secondary synchronization sequence in the second OFDM symbol. The second OFDM symbol is adjacent to the first OFDM symbol, and the center subcarriers are part of a system bandwidth and a part of the center subcarriers is not used for mapping the secondary synchronization sequence.