A Gram-stain-negative, non-spore-forming, short rod-shaped, non-motile, light-pink bacterial strain, MIMtkLc17T, was isolated from biological soil crusts collected in Liangcheng, Inner Mongolia. Growth of strain MIMtkLc17T was observed at 2-35 °C and in the presence of 1% (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that sequence similarities between strain MIMtkLc17T and the type strains of species of the genus Hymenobacter ranged from 89.93% to 96.49%. Strain MIMtkLc17T can secrete mass polysaccharide. The major fatty acids of strain MIMtkLc17T were iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c/C16 : 1ω6c), C16 : 1ω5c and summed feature 4 (iso-C17 : 1 I/anteiso-C17 : 1 B). The sole respiratory quinone was menaquinone MK-7. The G+C content of the chromosomal DNA was 57.8 mol%. The results of phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic characterization indicated that strain MIMtkLc17T can be distinguished from all known species of the genus Hymenobacter and represents a novel species of this genus, for which the name Hymenobacter terrenus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MIMtkLc17T ( = MCCC 1K00507T = KCTC 42636T).