A novel actinomycete strain, designated TRM 46012(T), was isolated from sediment of Aiding Lake in Tulufan Basin (42° 64' N 89° 26' E), north-west China. The strain was aerobic and Gram-staining-positive with an optimum NaCl concentration for growth of 0-5% (w/v). The isolate had sparse aerial mycelium and produced bud-shaped spores at the end of the aerial mycelium on ISP medium 4. The isolate contained ll-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and ribose as the major whole-cell sugar. The polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylinositol mannoside, one unidentified phospholipid and three unidentified glycolipids. The predominant menaquinones were MK-9(H₆), MK-9(H₈) and MK-9(H₄). The major fatty acids were iso-C(16:0), anteiso-C(17:0) and anteiso-C(15:0). The G+C content of the DNA was 74.4 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis showed that strain TRM 46012(T) had 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 95.7% with the most closely related species with a validly published name, Streptomyces cheonanensis, and it could be distinguished from all species in the genus Streptomyces by using the data from this polyphasic taxonomic study. On the basis of these data, strain TRM 46012(T) should be designated as a representative of a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces aidingensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TRM 46012(T) ( =CGMCC 4.5739(T) =NBRC 108211(T)).