Aimed at the improvement of data transmission reliability in wireless sensor networks(WSNs), a cooperative communication based clustering routing algorithm is proposed in this paper. This algorithm includes three phases of clustering, routing between clusters and routing in cluster, which are able to determine the optimal data path to satisfy the data transmission reliability based on the radio of signal and noise, and then realize the cooperative communication between source node and destination node. The simulation results show that the cooperative communication based clustering algorithm in WSNs can effectively optimize the data path in network, and improve the efficiency of frequency spectrums, and then enhance the reliability of data transmission.