To obtain clean and sustainable alternative energy, the development of low-cost, high efficient, wide pH range and durable non-precious metal electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has become one of the crucial issues for the large-scale application of water splitting. We demonstrate a simple and efficient synthetic strategy for the preparation of cobalt-nitrogen codoped hierarchically porous carbon (Co-NHPC) electrocatalysts towards HER, by the direct carbonization followed by removing the Co nanoparticles. The resultant carbon-based materials were demonstrated to be three-dimensional porous graphitic structure with the highly active Co-N-C complex, leading to a high electrocatalytic activity and durability for HER in both of alkaline and acidic electrolyte. Considering the facial and rational preparation processes, the self sacrificial nanoparticle templates synthetic strategy developed in this work is promising to design other carbon-based materials for other electrochemical applications. (C) 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.