Peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction is still a major challenge in the orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA) uplink systems. The sub-carrier mapping in OFDMA can be done in two modes, clustered or localized mode and distributed mode. The localized mode is more appropriate for the practical implementations than the distributed mode due to its low sensitivity against the imperfect power control, phase noise and inter-carrier interference. In this paper, we present two precoding-based PAPR reduction techniques: Zadoff-chu and generalized chirp-like precoding-based techniques for localized OFDMA uplink systems, respectively, for the upcoming 3 GPP long-term evolution-advanced standard. In addition, the traditional selected mapping (SLM) PAPR reduction technique is implemented with the proposed systems to reduce more PAPR. At clip rate of 10-3, computer simulation results show that the precoding-based PAPR reduction techniques can reduce the PAPR up to 6.5 dB and precoding-based SLM techniques can further reduce the PAPR up to 4.4 dB, respectively, with user sub-carriers M = 16 and system sub-carriers N = 64, for the QPSK modulation. The symbol-error rate performance of the proposed systems is also better than the conventional OFDMA uplink systems and the WHT-based systems. © 2013 King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.