This paper reports a general synthesis strategy for the hollow porous prismatic graphitic carbon nitride obtained from a supramolecular precursor with prismatic morphology, which was synthesized via a one-pot hydrothermal process using melamine or other N-containing compounds as the starting materials, without any other assist reagents. The best g-C3N4 photocatalyst in this work possesses a high hydrogen evolution rate (3486 mu mol h(-1) g(-1), lambda > 420 nm and 14643 mu mol h(-1) g(-1) under full spectrum light) and superior photocatalytic activity in degradation of rhodamine B dye, giving a rate constant of 0.05032 min(-1), almost 14.7 times than the bulk g-C3N4 under the visible light irradiation. The excellent photocatalytic performance is mainly attributed to the large specific surface area, more negative conduction potential and the faster separation efficiency of the g-C3N4 photocatalyst.