Hierarchical porous carbons were prepared by using microporous zeolitic metal azolate frameworks (MAF-6) as both template and carbon precursor. After the carbonization, the original shape of the sacrificial MAF-6 has been well preserved, and the sizes of the obtained hierarchical porous carbons are much smaller than the parent MAF-6. Especially, the HPC1000-5 manifests a high specific capacity (283.4F g(-1) at 0.2 mA g(-1)) and excellent cycling performance in an alkaline aqueous electrolyte. Furthermore, the characterizations of hierarchical porous carbons were fully developed, including powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, N-2 adsorption and Raman spectroscopy. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.