A facile method is proposed to prepare cobalt supported on nitrogen-doped porous carbon material with high graphitization degree by using chitosan as carbon source, urea as soft template and poloxamer as dispersant. The prepared cobalt-carbon material (Co@NPC) shows that uniformly distributed cobalt nanoparticles are encapsulated in nitrogen-doped porous carbon bundle with large specific surface area. When Co@NPC is applied as electrode in hydrogen evolution reaction, it exhibits superior electrocatalytic performance with low overpotential (eta(10) = 259 mV), small Tafel slope (99 mV dec(-1)) and high stability with 83% of its original current density remained after 6 h electrochemical test in 1 M potassium hydroxide electrolyte. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.