Catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are crucial in fuel cells. Developing metal-free catalyst with high activity at low-cost and high-volume production remains a great challenge. Here, we report a kind of nitrogen-doped nanoporous carbon nanosheets derived from a conveniently available and accessible plant Typha orientalis. The materials have high surface area (the highest surface area can be 898 m2 g−1), a number of micropores and high content of nitrogen atom (highest content of 9.1 at.%). Typical product exhibits an unexpected, surprisingly high ORR activity. In alkaline media, it exhibits similar catalytic activity but superior tolerance to methanol to commercial 20% Pt/C. In acidic media, it also shows excellent catalytic ability, stability and tolerance to methanol. This low-cost, simple and readily scalable approach provides a straightforward route to synthesize excellent electrocatalyst directly from biomass, which may find broad applications in the fields of supercapacitors, sensors, gas uptake and so on.