Daniel Mangeas, official speaker of the cycling classic Tour de France speaks during the presentation of the 2009 route during a press conference in Paris. (Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images)
The port city was preferred to fellow Dutch town Utrecht.
"We have chosen Rotterdam for two main reasons: first, because after London (in 2007) Rotterdam as a big city shows our will to use the Tour to promote the bicycle as an urban mode of transport," Tour organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation, said in a statement.
"Then because its location fits in perfectly well with the route we're planning in 2010," they added.
The Tour de France last started from the Netherlands in 1996 in s'Hertogenbosch.