•Synthesis methods of ordered mesoporous carbons (OMC) are summarized.•Adsorptive removal of contaminants by OMC is systematically documented.•Effects of various modifications of OMCs on pollutant removal are reviewed.•Recent advances and future directions on OMC applications are highlighted. An ideal adsorbent should possess the ability of being easily fabricated, cheap to produce, and have a high adsorptive capacity for adsorbates. Ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC), a moderately new member of the carbonaceous family of adsorbents, has arisen as a potential adsorbent because of its distinct features such as high BET surface area, large pore size and porosity volume, tunable surface chemistry and thermo-mechanical stability. In this review paper, we have presented a systematic documentation of all the research efforts on OMC preparation, modification, characterization, and environmental application for pollutant removal. The subsequent characterizations of OMC employing different techniques, such as, N2 Adsorption-Desorption Isotherm, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) images, X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS) spectra, are summarized. Furthermore, we have compared the adsorption performance of different modified OMCs towards different inorganic pollutants, such as heavy metals, and various organic pollutants categorically, such as dyes, phenols and their derivatives, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), alkaloids, nitrogen containing organic compounds, and vitamins. Future research directions on functionalized OMC for the adsorptive removal of emerging pollutants and other environmental applications are also provided.