The current review article attempts to cover the field of nanoporous materials, thereby materials with voids of the order of 1 nm to 100 nm or even larger. Concepts, that have an effect on a more general basis, are introduced and the common features among the different classes of nanoporous materials are demonstrated enabling understanding their formation and stability. It is seen that the most successful method to produce nanoporous materials made by design is to imprint a template structure into a functional inorganic or even organic network. Further, the manuscript gives an introduction to state of the art overview for microporous, mesoporous and macroporous materials, while the preference lies on ordered pore structures. Further, it is demonstrated how important but also demanding the use of modern analytical techniques are. This makes the field of nanoporous materials truly interdisciplinary with aspects of inorganic chemistry, polymer science, colloid chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry and chemical engineering.