Large scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be used for various pervasive and ubiquitous applications such as security, health-care, industry automation, agriculture, environment and habitat monitoring. As hierarchical clusters can reduce the energy consumption requirements for WSNs, we investigate intelligent techniques for cluster formation and management. A genetic algorithm (GA) is used to create energy efficient clusters for data dissemination in wireless sensor networks. The simulation results show that the proposed intelligent hierarchical clustering technique can extend the network lifetime for different network deployment environments.