An outer casing of a control cable has a small stroke loss and a small variation of freeplay length, even when the degree of bending varies. An outer casing is formed so that an armor layer of two threads configuration is formed, in which a trapezoidal wire made of metal and a round wire 17 or an oval wire are respectively aligned and wound spirally, and on the surface of the armor layer, a coating made of synthetic resin is provided. A control cable is formed so that an inner cable is inserted into the outer casing. The ratio of width in the axis direction of the round wire 17 or the oval wire to the width of the bottom of the trapezoidal wire 16 is 0.3 to 2, the ratio of the thickness of the round wire 17 or the oval wire to the thickness of the trapezoidal wire is 0.5 to 1, the ratio of the winding pitch P of the spiral to the outer diameter D2 of the armor layer 13 is 0.25 to 0.8.