When it comes to improving the performance of a wireless mesh network, the positioning of routers is critical. In order to provide the greatest network accessibility, it is essential that mesh routers be installed in appropriate locations. One way to improve the network's performance is to increase the coverage while utilizing an optimum number of routers. The network coverage may be optimised using a number of different techniques that have been developed over time in the scientific literature. An algorithm called Harris Hawk's Optimization (HHO) is being used in this study to optimally locate mesh routers in a mesh network in order to optimise coverage and reduce network congestion. The HHO identifies the best positions to place the routers in order to have the best possible network topology by removing the overlapping routers to minimize the number of routers while keeping the coverage maximized. In this research, 60, and 100 mesh routers are deployed in two different network topologies. The simulation results are analysed and compared with Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA), Gray Wolf Optimization (GWO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. With regard to network coverage and congestion reduction, simulation results show that HHO surpasses the benchmark algorithms by having 98 coverage and 34 reduction in the network size. © 2022 IEEE.