Station placement has been a controversial topic in China’s high-speed railway (HSR) development. The media and the literature have frequently mentioned that many HSR stations are placed too far from the cities they intend to serve, and new districts planned around HSR stations are becoming ghost towns. In addition, those mis-placed stations reflect the poor connection of HSR and local urban planning. Location choice of HSR station can significantly influence the accessibility and social-economic benefits brought by HSR investment. Therefore, the decision-making process underlying HSR station placement has significant policy implications. As a result of multi-stakeholder game, station placement is affected by not only geographical conditions and technical factors, but also political and economic factors. This paper reviews the underlying principles of HSR station placements under the changing circumstances of HSR funding. We find out that decisions on station placement are driven by four distinct factors: passengers’ access to HSR stations, cost constraint of the rail company, local government’s desire for land development revenue, and the equity concern of the central government. These factors in many circumstances contradicts with each other, and their relative importance largely shapes the outcome of station placement. The observed station placement outcome, therefore, could be explained with a framework incorporating these four factors. With this framework, this paper explains a group of representative cases of HSR station placement. Firstly, it is not rare that travelers’ convenience is emphasized in HSR station location choice. Noticeable examples include Shanghai Hongqiao Station and Shenzhen Futian Station. Shanghai Hongqiao rail Station claims to be the most passenger friendly air-rail transport hub in China. It enables easy connections between HSR and flight. This location selection was made possible because the reform in the national rail system happened to increase the negotiation power of Shanghai city government. Shenzhen Futian rail station, secondary to Shenzhen North Station, is at the very center of Shenzhen. It was completely funded by the local government. It aims to offer a better intercity rail travel experience for travelers whose trips originate or end around the city government center. The economic and political power of Shenzhen and Shanghai plays a vital role to place stations at such location, despite its relatively high engineering cost. Secondly, the stations’ placement in most secondary cities are affected by the rail company’s desire to save engineering cost and to shorten travel time between the major anchor cities. The former Ministry of Railway introduced the principle of “big and fast” for HSR projects, which prioritizes service quality for the regional centers at the expense of that for smaller cities. As a result, typical stations in the secondary city have to be relatively distanced from the central part of the city in order to save engineering cost and to maintain operational line-haul speed. It frequently happens that HSR stations are so distanced from the pre-existing urban area that the plan to build an urban settlement around the new HSR station imposes a great challenge. Thirdly, a few widely criticized HSR station placement are produced out of political equity rather than transportation demand. As HSR becomes a symbol of modernity, leaders of various local governments compete for HSR services. China’s planning rule for HSR says that local governments are qualified to have a station if the rail track passes its jurisdiction, which unfortunately results in unnecessary and sub-optimum station placement. In addition, when HSR service and HSR stations are used as a measure for poverty reduction in China’s relatively under-developed inner parts, the weak city center there can hardly plays as an anchor point for station placement. One representative case is Xiaoganbei rail station, which claims to be China’s No.1 HSR station when ranked by the distance to the city center. Fourthly, with a strong interest in land lease profits, local governments are quite willing to put the station at the periphery or even outside the pre- existing built-up area, expecting great land value increments around HSR stations. However, unfulfilled development around HSR stations creates a persistent impression that the station has been placed at wrong location. The existing experience tells us that HSR service alone is not sufficient to create a new city. The case of Huizhounan rail station and Guangzhounan Rail Station, tell that stable and favorable urban and regional plans are essential for timely land development around the new HSR stations. Overall, those mis-placed HSR stations represent a new challenge to connect urban development and transportation investment in the HSR era. The so- called “mis-placed HSR stations” may not be truly mis-placed, but reflects a variety of station placement outcome. Station placement is driven by mainly four factors, and their relative importance shapes the dynamics of station-placement. Those rationales behind the HSR station placement can also bring some inspirations for the future development. As the railway investment and operation becomes more market-oriented, the funding source of HSR project will increasingly shift toward province and local governments, which gives them greater bargaining power in HSR alignment and station placement. HSR stations to be planned are opportunities for resourceful local governments who are ambitious enough to reshape its urban spatial structure with the new HSR station, as long as the risk of debt is taken good care of. For HSR stations in operation, they serve as nodes in the transport network. The vitality of their surrounding area relies on and interfere with the function of HSR stations. Existing research tells us that a value-capture mechanism based on real estate property could serve as a venue to improve the co-existence of the station and its surrounding area..