Six novel facultatively anaerobic, Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, non-haemolytic bacteria (zg-320T/zg-336, zg-917T/zg-910 and zg-913T/zg-915) isolated from animal tissues and human faeces were found to belong to the genus Corynebacterium based on the phylogenetic analyses of 16S rRNA gene and 262 core genes set. Based on the greatest degree of 16S rRNA similarity, zg-320T/zg-336 had the highest 16S rRNA gene similarity to Corynebacterium falsenii DSM 44353T (97.51 %), zg-917T/zg-910 to Corynebacterium coyleae DSM 44184T (98.68 %), and zg-913T/zg-915 to Corynebacterium afermentans subsp. lipophilum CIP 103500T (98.79 %). The three novel type strains had a relatively high DNA G+C content (61.2–64.4 mol%), low DNA relatedness and ANI values with their respective neighbours: 23.5/72.7 %, 25.0/72.3%and 22.6/73.1 % (zg-320T vs. Corynebacterium auriscanis CIP 106629T, Corynebacterium resistens DSM 45100T and Corynebacterium suicordis DSM 45110T); 24.4/82.3% and 23.7/81.3 % (zg-917T vs. C. coyleae DSM 44184T and Corynebacterium jeddahense JCBT); 26.8/83.7% and 27.7/84.4 % (zg-913T vs. Corynebacterium mucifaciens ATCC 700355T and C. afermentans subsp. lipophilum CCUG 32105T). The three novel species had C16 : 0, C18 : 0, C18 : 1  ω9c and C18 : 0 ante/C18 : 2  ω6,9c as the major cellular fatty acids; MK-8(H2) in strain zg-917T and MK-9(H2) in strains zg-320T and zg-913T were found to be the major respiratory quinones. For the three novel species, the detected major polar lipids included diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidyl inositol mannoside, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol, the cell-wall peptidoglycan was based on meso-DAP, and the whole-cell sugars mainly included ribose, arabinose and galactose. The three novel species grew optimally at 35–37 °C, 0.5 % (w/v) NaCl and pH 7.0–8.0; notably, they were tolerant of 10.5 % (w/v) NaCl. Based on the results of these comprehensive analyses, three novel species in the genus Corynebacterium are proposed, aptly named Corynebacterium zhongnanshanii sp. nov. (zg-320T = GDMCC 1.1719T = JCM 34106T), Corynebacterium lujinxingii sp. nov. (zg-917T = GDMCC 1.1707T = JCM 34094T) and Corynebacterium wankanglinii sp. nov. (zg-913T = GDMCC 1.1706T = JCM 34398T).