A gram-positive, aerobic, rod- or coccus-shaped, non-motile bacterium, designated DMZ1(T), was isolated from soil of the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea. Strain DMZ1(T) grew optimally at 30 °C, at pH 7-8 and with 1 % (w/v) NaCl. The isolate showed high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Knoellia aerolata 5317S-21(T) (98.2 %). The cell-wall sugars were glucose and ribose. The peptidoglycan amino acids were meso-diaminopimelic acid, glutamic acid and glycine. The major cellular fatty acids were iso-C(16 : 0), iso-C(15 : 0) and iso-C(14 : 0). The polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and five unknown phospholipids. The isolate did not contain mycolic acids. The DNA G+C content was 72.6 mol%. The isolate showed <28 % DNA-DNA relatedness with members of the genus Knoellia. Phylogenetic, phenotypic and genotypic analysis indicated that strain DMZ1(T) represents a novel species of the genus Knoellia, for which the name Knoellia locipacati sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is DMZ1(T) ( = KACC 15114(T) = JCM 17313(T)).