A Gram-negative, slightly curved rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain KMY02(T), was isolated from a forest soil in Daejeon, South Korea. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain KMY02(T) was shown to belong to the family Burkholderiaceae of the Betaproteobacteria, and to be related most closely to Burkholderia hospita LMG 20598(T) (98.7%), Burkholderia caribensis LMG 18531(T) (98.0%) and Burkholderia phymaturn LMG 21445(T) (97.4%). Its phylogenetic distance from all recognized species within the genus Burkholderia was less than 97%. Chemotaxonomic data [Q-8 as the major ubiquinone; C-16:0, C-17:0 cycio, summed feature 7 (C(18:1)omega 7c/omega 9t/omega 12t) and C-15:0 as the major fatty acids] supported the affiliation of strain KMY02(T) to the genus Burkholderia. The results of DNA-DNA hybridization experiments and physiological and biochemical tests allowed genotypic and phenotypic differentiation of the strain from recognized Burkholderia species. Therefore, KMY02(T) (=KCTC 12388(T) =NBRC 100964(T)) represents the type strain of a novel species, for which the name Burkholderia terrae sp. nov. is proposed.