[6] The tour, almost 200 km (125 miles) in length, follows a closed or circular route along frozen canals, rivers and lakes visiting the eleven historic Frisian cities: Leeuwarden, Sneek, IJlst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker, Dokkum, then returning to Leeuwarden.

The finishing point of the Elfstedentocht is a canal near Leeuwarden, called the "Bonkevaart", close to the landmark windmill, De Bullemolen, Lekkum.

In the build-up to a possible race in 2012, Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister remarked "once every fifteen years our country is not governed from The Hague but by twenty-two district heads in Friesland.

The longer the freezing temperatures stay, the more intense this "Elfstedenkoorts" (eleven cities fever) gets, culminating in a national near-frenzy when it is announced that the tour will actually be held.

In February 2012, Friesland hotels were fully booked and expecting between 1.5 and 2 million visitors in anticipation of a tour before it was announced, as the weather seemed suitable.

The Elfstedentocht was already part of Frisian tradition when, in 1890, Pim Mulier conceived the idea of an organised tour, which was first held in 1909 when 22 men competed.

[7] After this race, the Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden(nl) (Association of the Eleven Frisian Towns) [11] was established to organise the tours.

In the 1912 edition Jikke Gaastra was the first woman ever who finished the Elfstedentocht, but could not complete the full tour because the ice was not good enough after Sneek.

[13] The Elfstedentocht of 1963 became known as "The hell of '63" when only 69 of the 10,000 participants were able to finish the race, due to the extremely low temperatures of -18 °C (0°F), powder snow and a harsh eastern wind.

[14][15] Paping could not make out the finishing line as he was snow blind by the end of the race, and many of the contestants had frostbite, broken limbs, and damaged eyes.

In 1997 Piet Kleine, who had previously won a gold medal at the Olympics for speed skating was disqualified because he missed getting a stamp at Hindeloopen despite video evidence that he had been there.

[30] The eleven towns cycle race was first held in 1912 and developed in parallel with its skating counterpart, but unlike the skating race, has taken place on almost every year - apart from the 2001 event which was cancelled due to foot and mouth disease and the 2020 event which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has taken place on Whit Monday every year since 1947.

The event has become immensely popular and as a safety precaution it ceased to be a race but has become a tour with a maximum average speed of 25 km/h (15 mph) between checkpoints.

[32] In 2018, Dutch long-distance swimmer Maarten van der Weijden attempted to swim the entire eleven city tour.

[citation needed] The Eleven Cities Triathlon was completed for the first time by Frisian triathlete Stefan van der Pal in 2020.