In rural areas of developing countries as Mexico, waste disposal has usually been solved by disposing it into places such as ravines or sideways of roads far away from cities, although there are federal regulations (e.g. the Official Norm NOM-083-SEMARNAT-2003) that indicate which conditions should be met to select a site for a sanitary landfill. Such regulations include also criteria on the characteristics of construction and operation of the landfills. This study presents a GIS-supported procedure for the identification of suitable sites for the construction of sanitary landfills. The procedure intends to meet the criteria for site selection according to the cited regulation. The mandatory criteria are restrictive concerning location and proximity to superficial hydrology, groundwater and geology; furthermore, we also include other recommended criteria such as available area, clay soil for cell covering, access, slope, visibility, dispersion and type of vegetation. This procedure has been applied for diverse research projects in Oaxaca State at the southern part of Mexico and was compiled in an ArcToolbox® to facilitate its application.