A motile, pleomorphic, red-pigmented archaeon, strain EJ-52T, was isolated from water from Lake Ejinor, a saline lake in Inner Mongolia, China. Analysis of the almost-complete 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that the isolate was phylogenetically related to species of the genus Halorubrum, being most closely related to Halorubrum saccharovorum ATCC 29252T (96.1% sequence similarity), Halorubrum lacusprofundi JCM 8891T (95.9%), Halorubrum tibetense AS 1.3239T (95.2%), Halorubrum alcaliphilum AS 1.3528T (95.2%) and Halorubrum vacuolatum JCM 9060T (95.1%). The polar lipids of strain EJ-52T were C20C20 derivatives of phosphatidylglycerol phosphate and phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester and a sulfated diglycosyl diether. Strain EJ-52T requires at least 2.5 M NaCl for growth and grows optimally at 3.4 M NaCl. The strain grows at 25-50 degrees C, with optimal growth occurring at 35-45 degrees C. Mg2+ is not required. The DNA G+C content is 64.2 mol%. On the basis of the data obtained in this study, strain EJ52T represents a novel species, for which the name Halorubrum orientale sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is EJ-52T (=CECT 7145T=JCM 13889T=CGMCC 1.6295T).