Lotus-type porous copper was fabricated by unidirectional solidification, and compressive experiments were subsequently conducted in the strain rate range of 10^-3–2400 s^-1 with the compressive direction parallel to the pores. A GLEEBLE-1500 thermal-mechanical simulation system and a split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) were used to investigate the effect of strain rate on the compressive deformation behaviors of lotus-type porous copper. The influence mechanism of strain rate was also analyzed by the strain-controlling method and by high-speed photography. The results indicated that the stress-strain curves of lotus-typed porous copper consist of a linear elastic stage, a plateau stage, and a densification stage at various strain rates. At low strain rate (< 1.0 s^-1), the strain rate had little influence on the stress-strain curves; but when the strain rate exceeded 1.0 s^-1, it was observed to strongly affect the plateau stage, showing obvious strain-rate-hardening characteristics. Strain rate also influenced the densification initial strain. The densification initial strain at high strain rate was less than that at low strain rate. No visible inhomogeneous deformation caused by shockwaves was observed in lotus-type porous copper during high-strain-rate deformation. However, at high strain rate, the bending deformation characteristics of the pore walls obviously differed from those at low strain rate, which was the main mechanism by which the plateau stress exhibited strain-rate sensitivity when the strain rate exceeded a certain value and exhibited less densification initial strain at high strain rate.