SIMPLIcity is an image retrieval system designed to enhance content-based image retrieval (CBIR) by incorporating semantics-sensitive methods, wavelet-based feature extraction, and integrated region matching. The system classifies images into semantic categories such as textured-nontextured and graph-photograph, which helps in narrowing down the search space and improving retrieval accuracy. The overall similarity measure between images, developed using the Integrated Region Matching (IRM) metric, integrates properties of all regions in the images, making it robust against inaccurate segmentation. The IRM metric reduces the adverse effects of segmentation errors, clarifies the semantics of regions, and simplifies the querying interface. Experiments on a database of about 200,000 general-purpose images demonstrate that SIMPLIcity performs significantly better and faster than existing systems, and it is robust to image alterations. The system's effectiveness is further validated through comparisons with other CBIR systems like IBM QBIC and WBIS.SIMPLIcity is an image retrieval system designed to enhance content-based image retrieval (CBIR) by incorporating semantics-sensitive methods, wavelet-based feature extraction, and integrated region matching. The system classifies images into semantic categories such as textured-nontextured and graph-photograph, which helps in narrowing down the search space and improving retrieval accuracy. The overall similarity measure between images, developed using the Integrated Region Matching (IRM) metric, integrates properties of all regions in the images, making it robust against inaccurate segmentation. The IRM metric reduces the adverse effects of segmentation errors, clarifies the semantics of regions, and simplifies the querying interface. Experiments on a database of about 200,000 general-purpose images demonstrate that SIMPLIcity performs significantly better and faster than existing systems, and it is robust to image alterations. The system's effectiveness is further validated through comparisons with other CBIR systems like IBM QBIC and WBIS.