Canal route selection is a key link in canal scheme design, directly related to canal engineering investment and comprehensive shipping benefits. The traditional manual route selection method has shortcomings such as strong subjectivity, limited comparison options, long decision-making cycles, and high labor intensity, making it difficult to obtain the optimal route for the entire region. A canal intelligent route selection method was proposed to address this issue, which applied geographic information systems to generate canal corridor belt to simplify the search domain. A mathematical model was constructed for optimizing the canal route, which transforming the problem of route selection into a plane alignment optimization problem based on the corridor belt. The genetic algorithm was introduced to solve the model, combined with the objective function and constraint conditions, the search for the global optimal solution was achieved through operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation. A case study analysis of route selection was conducted using data from a domestic canal. The results show that the intelligent route selection method based on genetic algorithm can find the optimal route of the canal that meets the constraints in a shorter time, and has significant advantages in improving efficiency and saving costs compared to traditional manual methods. The research results can provide technical support for the efficient design of future canal projects.