Abstract: Templated carbonization method has pioneered a new field in the preparation of porous carbon and become the most effective approach to controlling the structure of porous carbon in recent years. In this paper, the shortage of traditional method in the preparation of porous carbon is introduced, and the development of preparation of porous carbons by using silica gel, clay, zeolite and mesoporous silica as the temlate in carbonization is reviewed. The potential applications of templated carbons in the fields such as energy storage media, electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) and catalyst support are also presented. Further research is to be done in the field of preparation of porous carbons by using the templated approach.