How common are major cities not built by abundant water?

Question

When you look at the biggest cities in the world, they all tend to be built on a major body of water, either a coast, a large lake, or a major river. This made sense in ancient times, as abundant water fills two essential needs for civilization, (abundant water for drinking and abundant water for agriculture,) but even in modern times, when one would think that irrigation and pipelines would mitigate the necessity for local access to abundant water, we still see major cities showing up on the waterfront. I can only think of one example, modern or historical, of a major city without local access to abundant water, and that's Jerusalem. (And it took some pretty impressive feats of ancient engineering to get water to it.) But it seems strange to think that that would be the only one. Are there any other examples of major cities, either historical or modern, without local access to abundant water? How common was it?

Answer 1

For numerous inland (not coastal) Cities of the western United States established after 1845, several "then obscure" but "now very notable" communities flourished quite well without close-by access to abundant water. Mechanisms such as constructed Aqueducts and Dowsing Rods were often and successfully used in those early years.