A strictly aerobic, Gram-staining-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile, yellow-pigmented bacterial strain, designated BX12(T), was isolated from soil collected from the peak area of Wudang Mountain in the city of Shiyan, Hubei province, China. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain BX12(T) was most closely related to Flavobacterium subsaxonicum WB 4.1-42(T) (95.9% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), followed by Flavobacterium beibuense F44-8(T) (95.6%) and Flavobacterium rivuli WB 3.3-2(T) (94.1%). The major fatty acids (≥5%) of strain BX12(T) were summed feature 3 (comprising C(16:1)ω7c and/or C(16:1)ω6c), iso-C(15:0), C(16:0), iso-C(17:0) 3-OH, and C(16:0) 3-OH. The major polar lipid was phosphatidylethanolamine, and the major respiratory quinone was menaquinone-6. The genomic DNA G+C content was 43.9 mol%. On the basis of a high number of phenotypic differentiating properties and phylogenetic uniqueness, strain BX12(T) represents a novel species of the genus Flavobacterium for which the name Flavobacterium hauense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BX12(T) ( =CCTCC AB 2012197(T) =KCTC 32147(T)). Emended descriptions of Flavobacterium subsaxonicum, Flavobacterium beibuense and Flavobacterium rivuli are also proposed.