Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consist of a large number of sensor nodes with finite and limited energy levels distributed throughout a finite area. The energy of the nodes is mostly consumed to send information to a central station. Extending the network lifetime through decreasing the energy consumption of the nodes has always obtained attention, due to the energy limitations in WSNs. In this paper, a multi-level genetic based clustering algorithm is proposed to extend the lifetime of these types of networks. The proposed multi-level clustering algorithm divides the geographical area into three levels according to the radio range and the clustering of the nodes in each level is performed independently. Technically, Cluster Heads (CH) consumes more energy than other nodes to transmit data. So, the proposed algorithm aims to extend the network lifetime by reducing the number of CHs. Finally, a better energy consumption balance between the nodes is realized by altering the CHs in each routing round. The results of the experiments show the superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of and the network lifetime over other analogous protocols.