Collection: Mario Kart

There are a total of 19 modern-day countries Mario has been to in an official Mario game to date.

Mario’s Time Machine has him visit Greece, Egypt, China, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Austria, India, and Japan.

The Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series adds Canada, Brazil, and Russia.

Finally, Mario Kart Tour features tracks based on cities from a few new countries: Australia, Singapore, The Netherlands, Thailand, and Spain.

In 2016, Nintendo entered a legal dispute with MariCar, an Osaka-based company offering tourists Mario Kart-themed tours of the city using modified go-karts. The service included costumes based on the Mario Kart roster and alluded to the games' items in its advertising, jokingly asking customers not to attack each other with "banana peels" or "red turtle shells." Nintendo filed a complaint with the Japan Patent Office in September, arguing that the company's trademark was deliberately over-evocative of that for Mario Kart. Four months later, however, the office denied Nintendo's request, noting that "MariCar" was not a common abbreviation for Mario Kart, and thus the two trademarks did not conflict.

As the Japanese legal system does not include fair use protections for parodies, Nintendo subsequently sued MariCar the following month for copyright infringement due to the unauthorized inclusion of Mario character costumes. The case was ultimately decided in Nintendo's favor in September 2018, with MariCar being forced to drop the Mario Kart iconography and pay Nintendo ¥10 million (roughly equivalent to $89,000 USD) in damages. The company attempted to appeal the case to the Japanese Supreme Court, who rejected the motion in December 2020 and increased the fine to ¥50 million (approximately $483,000 USD). MariCar has since rebranded as Street Kart in the wake of the lawsuit.

In "The Powerpuff Girls" episode titled "The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!!", the Mario Kart series is referenced during a scene that has the titular girls and Professor Utonium race against the villains in go karts, where he presses a button that fires a green turtle shell at Mojo-Jojo in a similar fashion to the shell items.

According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a Mario Kart game that could be played while inside their cars was once proposed to Nintendo, only to be turned down as they refused to license the series to Tesla.

In the episode "Bizarre Bazaar" of the animated series "Amphibia", during a race that Anne and Sprig have against their opponent, he uses a blue-shelled flying beetle with spikes that automatically chases and hits Anne and Sprig as they take the lead, after which Sprig comments "Well that didn't feel balanced." This is a blatant reference to the powerful Blue Shell item from the Mario Kart series.

A 2016 study conducted in Hong Kong revealed that more players drove a car better after playing Mario Kart. This was because “easily accessible action video games for as little as 5 hours can be a cost-effective tool to help people improve essential visuomotor-control skills used for driving,” according to the Association of Psychological Science.

In the Mario Kart games, Rosalina is a heavy/large class character. However, in the Super Smash Bros. series she is a light class character. The reason she is a heavy class character in Mario Kart is most likely due to her height.