The cinnamon bittern was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] Gmelin based his description on the "Chinese heron" that had been included by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume A General Synopsis of Birds.

A molecular phylogenetic study of the heron family Ardeidae published in 2023 found that Ixobrychus was paraphyletic.

The neck is stretched perpendicularly, bill pointing skyward, while the bird freezes and becomes very hard to see among the surrounding reeds.

The species can be difficult to see, given their skulking lifestyle and reed bed habitat, but tend to emerge at dusk, when they can be seen creeping almost cat-like in search of frogs.