A motile, rod-shaped, yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated strain CW1(T), was isolated from a water-cooling system in the Republic of Korea. Cells were Gram-stain-positive, aerobic, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. Strain CW1(T) formed slender rods with unusual bulbous protuberances. The major fatty acids were iso-C(16 : 1) (33.7 %), anteiso-C(15 : 0) (27.2 %), iso-C(14 : 0) (13.3 %) and C(16 : 0) (10.8 %). The cell-wall peptidoglycan was of type B2beta, containing lysine as the diamino acid. The respiratory quinones were menaquinones with 12, 13 and 14 isoprene units. A phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain CW1(T) formed an evolutionary lineage within the radiation enclosing members of the family Microbacteriaceae and was related to, but distant from, members of the genera Microcella and Yonghaparkia. On the basis of the evidence presented, strain CW1(T) is considered to represent a novel species of a new genus in the family Microbacteriaceae, for which the name Chryseoglobus frigidaquae gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Chryseoglobus frigidaquae is CW1(T) (=KCTC 13142(T) =JCM 14730(T)).