In this paper, we proposed a multi-hop distributed energy-efficient clustering with sub-clustering (MHDEEC-SC) architecture. Our architecture selects a fitter node served as cluster head, and uses the concept of sub-clustering that chooses a node in remote areas with higher energy to serve as sub-cluster head. Besides, our architecture can balance the energy consumption between nodes and improves the coverage efficiency and prolongs the lifetime of a network. Simulation results show that the performances of our architecture perform better than the others in terms of the number of alive node, coverage rate of node and total remaining energy of node.