Generally polymer bulk structures and nanostructures are thermally insulative. In this study, we show that an improved nanoporous template wetting technique can prepare thermally conductive polymer nanowire arrays. The thermal conductivities of the fabricated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) nanowire arrays with diameters of 100 nm and 200 nm, measured by a laser flash method, are about 2 orders of magnitude higher than their bulk counterparts. The estimated thermal conductivity of a single HDPE nanowire is as high as 26.5 W/mK at room temperature. The high orientation of chains of the HDPE nanowires may arise from the integrative effects of shear rate, vibrational perturbation, translocation, nanoconfinement and crystallization. Findings in this study provide useful strategies on enhancing the intrinsic thermal properties of polymer nanostructures. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.