The Tour de France is an annual road bicycle race held over 23 days in July.
[1] The race usually covers approximately 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi), passing through France and neighbouring countries such as Belgium.
[2] The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages.
Individual finishing times for each stage are totalled to determine the overall winner at the end of the race.
Since the 1950s it has typically taken place in a different town each year, and since the 1970s it has been common to award the Grand Départ to cities outside France as a way of increasing international interest in the competition and the sport.