A new oxalic acid based anodization process for long-range ordered alumina membranes has been developed, which can readily be implemented in nanotechnology as well as in industry. The process is a new generation of the so-called "hard anodization (HA)" that has widely been employed in industry for high-speed fabrication of mechanically robust, very thick (>100 µm) and low-porosity anodic alumina films since the 1960s. It offers big advantages over conventional anodization processes for nanoporous alumina membranes in terms of processing time, enabling 2500-3500% faster oxide growth with improved ordering of the nanopores. Perfectly ordered anodic alumina membranes on a cm 2 -scale with a high aspect ratio (>1000) of uniform nanopores with periodically modulated diameters have been realized by this new anodization process.