The Western Ghats region in Karnataka is experiencing an increase in landslides due to climate change and growing urbanization. These events are causing considerable socio-economic losses and damage to the infrastructure. Effective management of the landslide risks in the vulnerable regions with high population density and rainfall is a challenging task due to the unavailability of high-resolution landslide susceptibility maps. This study evaluates the landslide susceptibility in the Western Ghats region of Karnataka using the Relative Frequency Ratio (RFR) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). A total of 680 landslide data points were collected from the Bhukosh portal of the Geological Survey of India (GSI). The inventory was divided into two parts, the first part (70%) was used for training purposes, and the remaining part (30%) was used for validation of the model. The models were developed by utilizing spatial data of multiple natural causative factors obtained from different remote sensing, GIS databases. The result indicates that 54.24% of the study area is highly susceptible to landslides. The Uttara Kannada, Shivamogga, Kodagu, and Chikamagalur districts showed a high concentration of susceptible areas. The AHP and RFR models produced promising results, with an Area Under the Curve (AUC) value of 0.828 and 0.794, respectively. The findings of the study pave the way for effective management of disasters in Karnataka’s landslide-prone regions.