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One of the most critical and complex issues in long-term planning of distribution networks is the optimal placement of distribution transformers. In this paper, the optimal placement of distribution transformers was investigated based on a complete and multi-objective function. In the proposed method, location, optimal capacity, and the service area are determined by minimizing costs (investment, operation, reliability) and improving reliability and power quality parameters (voltage drop) due to electric restrictions (radial structure, voltage drop and equipment capacities). The planning of distribution networks is complicated due to the existence of numerous and multiple-criteria decision-making variables in objective functions; hence in this paper, the symbiotic organisms search (SOS) algorithm was used as a new heuristic optimization algorithm to solve the problem of long-term planning of distribution networks. The proposed method is tested on a real distribution network to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm,  Comparing the results of the proposed algorithm with the results of studies with genetic algorithms (GA), biogeography-based optimization (BBO) and imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA), indicates the performance and advantages of the proposed algorithm over other algorithms.