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Lithium-sulfur (Li–S) batteries are appealing energy storage technologies owing to their exceptional energy density. Their practical applications, however, are largely compromised by poor cycling stability and rate capability because of detrimental shuttling of polysulfide intermediates, complicated multiphase sulfur redox reactions, and uncontrolled precipitation of the discharge products (lithium sulfide, Li₂S). Herein, monodispersed Co single-atom catalyst on conductive nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheet (CoSA-N-C) with high Co content of 15.3 ​wt% was fabricated through a salt-template method and used as a sulfur host material to simultaneously alleviate the polysulfide shuttling, propel the redox kinetics of dissolved polysulfides, and mediate the deposition of Li₂S. The robust two-dimensional architecture of CoSA-N-C with large surface area, high porosity, and dual lithiophilic-sulfiphilic Co–N species enable …