In order to solve the growing leakage problem of the city water distribution systems, control valves were proposed to be installed in the pipeline to decrease the pipe pressure. An optimized model was established by means of Cuckoo Search to determine the effective numbers of valves and their location. A comparative study was made to show the difference between Genetic Algorithm and Cuckoo Search. The results show Cuckoo Search has a better performance in terms of searching speed and parameter requirement, which reveals the potential of the proposed optimization model for control valves in a reallife water distribution system.