Depicts a map of Europe surrounded by the country name in three languages on the left and value on the right.

Most of the Tour de France stages take place in metropolitan France, although since the mid-1950s it has become common practice to visit neighbouring countries. Andorra, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom all hosted stages or part of a stage.

• Royal Dutch Mint's mintmark: Caduceus or Mercury's wand, a short staff entwined by two serpents
• Royal Belgian Mint Director's privy mark: Coat of arms of the municipality Herzele (Ingrid Van Herzele)

Depicts the official logo of the Grand Départ in Brussels (left, a cyclist with a bicycle in a form of the letter S) and the Tour de France (top right), as well as the yellow jersey with an inscription "100 Years".

The course changes every year, but has always finished in Paris; since 1975 it has finished along the Champs-Élysées. The start of the course is known as the Grand Départ. 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. The right to host the Grand Départ is now highly sought after, with cities bidding to host, and has been shown to increase economic activity as well as interest in cycling in the host area.

There is doubt over when the yellow jersey began. The Belgian rider Philippe Thys, who won the Tour in 1913, 1914 and 1920, recalled in the Belgian magazine Champions et Vedettes when he was 67 that he was awarded a yellow jersey in 1913 when the organiser, Henri Desgrange, asked him to wear a coloured jersey. Thys declined, saying making himself more visible in yellow would encourage other riders to ride against him.

According to the official history, the first yellow jersey was worn by the Frenchman Eugène Christophe in the stage from Grenoble to Geneva on July 18, 1919. The colour was chosen either to reflect the yellow newsprint of the organising newspaper, L'Auto, or because yellow was an unpopular colour and therefore the only one available with which a manufacturer could create jerseys at late notice.