A Gram-staining-negative, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped, non-flagellated, non-spore-forming and gliding marine bacterium designated strain CC-AMZ-301(T) was isolated from coastal surface seawater near Taichung harbour, Taiwan. Strain CC-AMZ-301(T) predominantly synthesized zeaxanthin and thus formed yellow colonies on marine agar. The novel strain showed high pairwise 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Kordia periserrulae IMCC1412(T) (95.0 %), K. algicida KCTC 8814P(T) (94.4 %) and K. antarctica IMCC3317(T) (94.2 %), and formed a phylogenetic lineage tightly associated with species of the genus Kordia. The polar lipid profile of strain CC-AMZ-301(T) consisted of three unidentified lipids, three unidentified aminolipids and one unidentified phospholipid. The major fatty acids (>5 % of total) were iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1�s7c and/or C16 : 1�s6c) and summed feature 9 (iso-C17 : 1�s9c and/or 10-methyl C16 : 0). The DNA G+C content was 36.4 mol%. Menaquinone 6 (MK-6) was the predominant respiratory quinone. The major polyamine was the triamine sym-homospermidine. Based on evidence from the present polyphasic study, strain CC-AMZ-301(T) is proposed to represent a novel species of the genus Kordia, for which the name Kordia aquimaris sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is CC-AMZ-301(T) (= JCM 18556(T) = BCRC 80464(T)). An emended description of the genus Kordia is also proposed.