There has been an explosive growth in both computer and communication networks since the last three decades. Routing problem is one of the most important issues facing the development, improvement and performance of communication and computer networks. The routing algorithm is used by network to compute the path that would best serve to transport the data from the source to the destination.Because the routing algorithms have so much impact on the overall performance of any network, the first objective of this thesis is to research and compare between six routing algorithms. Also, this thesis illustrated that how routing algorithms are most efficient under varying the network configuration parameters. A number of experiments were performed to evaluate the performance of these routing algorithms and an appropriate estimated function is generated which is completely dependent on the influences of the routing algorithms under various circumstances.The second objective of this thesis is to evaluate the performance of genetic algorithm used for finding the shortest path in communication network. The performance of GA is compared to Dijkstra algorithm in terms of finding the optimum solution and running time. This is realized using different simulated networks to clarify the advantages and deficiencies of each algorithm.