In this paper, 3D interconnected honeycomb- like hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) are prepared from petroleum asphalt via in-situ KOH activation in a molten salt medium. As symmetry two electrodes for supercapacitors, HPCs with high specific surface area of 2227 m(2) g (1) show high rate performance, i.e. 265 F g (1) at 0.05 A g (1), 221 F g (1) at 20 A g (1), and superior cycle stability with 91.1% capacitance retention at 5 A g (1) after 10,000 cycles in 6 M KOH electrolyte. This facile strategy to prepare massive HPCs from cheap petroleum asphalt can provide high performance electrode materials for energy storage devices. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.