New course

A new course is the term used to refer to an original course in the Mario Kart series that is new to the series and has never appeared before. They often took the name of the game they were derived from: in Mario Kart: Super Circuit, the original tracks are called Super Circuit Tracks to distinguish them from the tracks originating from Super Mario Kart, called Extra Tracks. In Mario Kart DS, the new courses are known as Nitro Courses from the project codename of the game, Project Nitro. In Mario Kart Wii the new courses are known as Wii courses. Some of them have reappeared in later Mario Kart games as classic courses. In all the console games, at least one Mario Circuit, Bowser's Castle, Rainbow Road, a beach- or water-themed course, and a snow-themed course have appeared as a new course. While Mario Kart Tour does have its own Mario Circuit and Rainbow Road courses, they have only been in the form of remix courses thus far.

Lightning Cup
NOTE: From Mario Kart DS onwards, it is the last cup of the classic courses.

Mario Kart Tour
A subset of Mario Kart Tours new courses are referred to as city courses' and are specifically set in real life cities. These courses typically appear in tours themed after their pertinent city, such as London Loop in the London Tour. There are up to four different layouts of city courses, with the fourth layout typically being a 1-lap circuit that incorporates most of the peculiar routes of the three previous layouts.

Since the content of each cup changes periodically in Mario Kart Tour, courses below are simply listed in the order in which they were introduced to the game.

Platform codes
Since Mario Kart 7, every course in the console Mario Kart games and in Mario Kart Tour features a specific platform code prepended to its internal name, indicating the platform on which the game that had said courses as new courses was released. As the courses become classic courses the platform code receives a game text counterpart that depends on the language set and is prepended to the course name.

Mario Kart Tour
In Mario Kart Tour, the cups are named after characters rather than items. Most of the unique characters in the game have a cup named after them, and the cup's associated character gets raised one shelf on that cup's courses (unless it is already one of their favorite courses). The cups are listed below in order of their first appearance.

Trivia

 * The four worlds after World Bowser in Super Mario 3D World resemble the new cups (World Mushroom for Mushroom Cup, World Flower for Flower Cup, World Star for Star Cup, and World Crown for Special Cup).