Facile hydrothermal synthesis of nanoplate and mulberry-like porous shape of CuO nanostructures was developed as anode materials for application in lithium ion batteries. The powder X-ray diffraction patterns of both the samples were indexed well to a pure monoclinic phase of CuO with no impurities. The CuO sample synthesized at different pH and reaction temperature exhibited nanoplate with average width and length of ∼150–300nm and ∼300–700nm and mulberry-like porous shape of CuO with average length of ∼300–400nm. Electrochemical tests show that the lithium storage performances of both the nanoplate and mulberry-like samples are influenced more closely to its structural aspects than their morphology and size factors. The CuO nanoplate electrode exhibits high reversible charge capacity of 279.3mAhg−1 at 1.0C after 70 cycles, and a capacity of 150.2mAhg−1 even at high current rate of 4.0C during rate test, whereas the mulberry-like porous shape of CuO anode delivers only 131.4mAhg−1 at 1.0C after 70 cycles and 121.7mAhg−1 at 4.0C. It is believed that the nanoplate type architecture is very favorable to accommodate the volume expansion/contraction and aggregation of particles during the cyclic process. In contrast, the mulberry-like porous morphology could not preserve the integrity of the structure and completely disintegrated into nanoparticles during Li+ ion insertion/deinsertion due to the loose contact between the particles.