Rice has been a leading source of dietary Cd, a highly toxic trace element that presents in soil naturally and enters into food chain via soil-to-crop pathway. Natural variation occurs in the uptake, transportation, and compartmentation of Cd in rice. Selection and breeding of low-Cd rice has been a useful tool to prevent rice-derived products from exceeding the maximum limit of Cd. Selection programs for a low-Cd content of rice have been established and a stack of low-Cd rice cultivars have been identified from mega rice germplasms. In addition, low-Cd rice inbred lines and hybrid combinations have been successfully developed with maker-assisted selection in our rational design rice breeding program. In this paper, we updated the latest achievement of low-Cd rice selection and breeding in Southern China and summarized the characteristics of low-Cd rice and defined the low-Cd rice agronomically. Though the Cd level in rice grain is controlled by both environmental and genetic factors, the trait is highly heritable, and low-Cd gene can reduce the average grain Cd levels without destroying rice yield and essential micronutrient element level. Because the difference of grain-Cd level between high-Cd rice and low-Cd ones varied with soil and water conditions, being smaller in environments which generally produced a low grain Cd concentration, and greater in environments that produced a high-Cd concentration, the low-Cd rice should be first identified in a soil context with high Cd bio-availability and then be evaluated for the ability to reduce grains- Cd level below proposed international limits in a low-Cd soil.