A novel cold-living, Gram-stain-negative, yellow-pigmented and obligately aerobic bacterium designated strain 0563(T) was isolated from the China No. 1 glacier. Phylogenetic analysis showed that strain 0563(T) was a member of the genus Flavobacterium, sharing the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities with Flavobacterium limicola JCM 11473(T) (98.5 %) and Flavobacterium psychrolimnae NBRC 102679(T) (98.2 %). The genomic DNA G+C content was 34.8 mol%. Strain 0563(T) displayed the common phenotypic and chemotaxonomic features of the genus Flavobacterium, containing menaquinone-6 (MK-6) as the major quinone and iso-C(15 : 0), iso-C(15 : 0) 3-OH, summed feature 3 (comprising C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or C(16 : 1)omega6c), C(15 : 1)omega6c, iso-C(15 : 1) G and iso-C(16 : 0) 3-OH as the major fatty acids. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics, phylogenetic analysis and DNA-DNA relatedness data, the novel species Flavobacterium tiangeerense sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is 0563(T) (=CGMCC 1.6847(T) =JCM 15087(T)).