A novel actinomycete, designated strain NEAU-GH7(T), was isolated from a lake sediment and characterized using a polyphasic approach. Strain NEAU-GH7(T) was Gram-stain positive, aerobic, non-spore-forming and produced spherical sporangia. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence indicated that strain NEAU-GH7(T) formed a monophyletic clade with the closest relative Streptosporangium longisporum DSM 43180(T) (99.0 %), an association that was supported by a bootstrap value of 74 % in the neighbour-joining tree and also recovered with the maximum-likelihood algorithm. However, the low level of DNA-DNA relatedness allowed the strain to be differentiated from its closest relative. Moreover, strain NEAU-GH7(T) could also be differentiated from S. longisporum DSM 43180(T) and other Streptosporangium species showing high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (>98.0 %) by morphological and physiological characteristics. On the basis of phylogenetic analysis, DNA-DNA hybridization and phenotypic characteristics, strain NEAU-GH7(T) should be classified as a new species of the genus Streptosporangium, for which the name Streptosporangium shengliense [corrected] sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is NEAU-GH7(T) (=CGMCC 4.7105(T)=DSM 45881(T)).