Demand for renewable energy sources is increasing since traditional energy sources (i.e., coal, oil, and natural gas) have limited reserves and cause high greenhouse gas emission. Suitable site selection for new generation renewable resources is vital in large-scale projects. In this paper, suitable sites for solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants were selected for a Kayseri, Turkey case. Geographic information systems and multi criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods were integrated to exploit and construct the best location for solar PV power plants. In this context, three main, twelve sub-criteria, and their indicators were determined by considering expert opinion and previous studies. The rank based (i.e., rank sum, rank reciprocal weights, and rank order centroid weights) and analytical hierarchical process (AHP) methods were used to determine the weights of the criteria. The suitability maps created according to the calculated weights were divided into 5 levels (i.e., excellent, good, fair, low, poor site). To compare the success of MCDM methods, 33 existing installed PV power plants were randomly selected and used for validation. It was determined that the rank reciprocal method was the most successful in selection of the most suitable site. Four MCDM methods determined that the Sarız, Tomarza, and Incesu districts of Kayseri were the most suitable sites.