A novel aerobic, yellow-pigmented, Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped bacterial strain, CUG00004T, was isolated from a soil sample. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain CUG00004T was a member of the genus Flavobacterium and showed high sequence similarity with Flavobacterium soli DSM 19725T (96.9 %) and Flavobacterium glaciei CGMCC 0499T (95.6 %). The level of DNA-DNA relatedness between strain CUG00004T and F. soli DSM 19725T and F. glaciei CGMCC 1.5380T was 42.5 and 43.4 %, respectively. Strain CUG00004T was moderately alkaliphilic and grew optimally at pH 8.0, at 28 °C and in the presence of 0-1 % (w/v) NaCl. This organism contained menaquinone-6 (MK-6) as the only isoprenoid quinone and iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, anteiso-C15 : 0 and summed feature 9 (comprising iso-C17 : 1ω9c and/or C16 : 0 10-methyl) as the major fatty acids. The DNA G+C content of strain CUG00004T was 36.3 mol%. On the basis of phylogenetic, physiological and chemotaxonomic analyses, strain CUG00004T represents a novel species, for which the name Flavobacterium terriphilum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CUG00004T (=CCTCC AB 2014151T=KCTC 42876T).