A Gram-stain-negative, oxidase- and catalase-positive bacterial strain that was motile by gliding and produced a pink pigment, designated DCY49(T), was isolated from soil of a ginseng field in a mountainous region of Chungbuk province, South Korea. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain DCY49(T) belonged to the genus Pedobacter (93.0-96.3 % similarity). Strain DCY49(T) contained MK-7 as the predominant menaquinone. The major fatty acids were summed feature 3 (containing C16 : 1ω7c, C16 : 1ω6c and/or iso-C15 : 0 2-OH), iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and C16 : 0, and the main polar lipid was phosphatidylethanolamine. The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain DCY49(T) was 40.5 mol%. Strain DCY49(T) differed from related Pedobacter species by a number of phenotypic characteristics. On the basis of data from the present polyphasic study, strain DCY49(T) is described as representing a novel species of the genus Pedobacter, for which the name Pedobacter ginsengiterrae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is DCY49(T) ( = KCTC 23317(T) = JCM 17338(T)).