Methods and apparatus are provided for determining a set of cooperating cells for a mobile terminal in a mobile communication network for CoMP transmission or reception. A cell map is stored in memory of serving base station. The cell map associates one or more coordinating areas within the serving cell with corresponding sets of neighboring cells. To determine the set of cooperating cells for a given mobile terminal within a serving cell, the serving base station determines the current location of the mobile terminal. The current location of the mobile terminal is compared to the cell map stored in memory to determine the coordinating set for the mobile terminal.