C6786, the clinical isolate of the 'Oklahoma' strain of Pseudomonas (now Burkholderia) pseudomallei, was originally isolated in 1973 from a wound infection resulting from a farming accident in Oklahoma, USA. Environmental isolates C7532 and C7533 from the Oklahoma accident site were found to match C6786. These three isolates and a clinical isolate originally identified as B. pseudomallei that was recovered from a person in Georgia, USA, involved in an automobile accident were characterized by biochemical, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, multilocus sequence typing and DNA-DNA hybridization analyses. Results indicated that these strains comprise a novel species. The name Burkholderia oklahomensis sp. nov. is proposed, with strain C6786(T) (=LMG 23618(T)=NCTC 13387(T)=CCUG 51349(T)) as the type strain.