Aspects of the present disclosure describe discovering physical cell identifiers in wireless communications. It can be determined to discover a physical cell identifier of one or more cells in a zone based at least in part on detecting a condition. A cell-specific signal can be received from at least one cell of the one or more cells in the zone. The cell-specific signal can be associated with one of a plurality of possible scrambling codes or sequences. The physical cell identifier of the at least one cell can be determined as one of a plurality of physical cell identifiers that corresponds to the one of the plurality of possible scrambling codes or sequences.