This work demonstrates a facile synthesis of porous coral reef - like Mn3O4 (PC-Mn3O4) nanostructures via the hydrothermal process and their utilization as electrode materials in lithium ion battery (LIB). The structural and morphological investigations confirmed the coral reef - like morphology of obtained PC-Mn3O4. The obtained coral reef - like nanostructure owned the good specific surface area and high pore volume of similar to 118 m(2) g(-1) and similar to 0.277 cm(3) g(-1), respectively. For lithium ion battery application, the unique coral reef - like morphology of obtained PC-Mn3O4 exhibited the remarkable electrochemical performances with healthy lithium storage capacity, and excellent cyclability (such as 805.2 mAh/g at 0.1 C for 200 cycles; 246.5 mAh/g at 2.0 C after 450 cycles). It is believed that the obtained unique structure and its flexibility could be benefited to the effective structure enlargement, large generation of reaction sites and shorten the diffusion path for Li+ ions which considerably resulted in improving the electrochemical performance.