A novel strain of actinobacteria, designated strain NEAU-ZJC8T, was isolated from a saline-alkaline soil collected from Heilongjiang Province, north-east China and characterized using a polyphasic approach. Strain NEAU-ZJC8T exhibited morphological, cultural and chemotaxonomic features consistent with its classification as representing a member of the genus Streptomyces. Growth occurred at 16-35 °C, pH 5.0-11.0 and in the presence of 0-11 % (w/v) NaCl. The cell-wall peptidoglycan contained ll-diaminopimelic acid and glycine. Whole-cell hydrolysates mainly contained glucose, galactose and ribose. Predominant menaquinones were MK-9(H6), MK-9(H4) and MK-9(H8). The polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylinositol mannoside and two unidentified phospholipids. The major cellular fatty acids (>10 %) were iso-C16 : 0, iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and C16 : 0. The G+C content of the DNA was 72.7 mol%. A phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA sequences showed that strain NEAU-ZJC8T formed a distinct clade within the genus Streptomyces and was closely related to Streptomyces haliclonae DSM 41970T (98.56 % similarity) and Streptomyces marinus NBRC 105047T (97.96 % similarity). A combination of DNA-DNA hybridization results and some phenotypic characteristics demonstrated that strain NEAU-ZJC8T could be distinguished from its closest phylogenetic relatives. Therefore, strain NEAU-ZJC8T represents a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces daqingensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is NEAU-ZJC8T ( = CGMCC 4.7178T = JCM 30057T).