The invention provides an image retrieval method and system based on regional characteristics. The method comprises steps of S1, diving an input to-be-retrieved image into multiple subregional images; S2, extracting the regional characteristics of each subregional image and quantifying each regional characteristic into a corresponding visual word; and S3, traversing the visual word corresponding to each regional characteristic, retrieving the number of visual words included in each template image in a database inverted list, and taking the template image with the most visual words as a retrieval result image. The region of the image is divided, the regional characteristics of each regional image are extracted, and the retrieval result is obtained by matching the regional characteristics. Compared with the existing retrieval method through local characteristics, the method is featured in that the number of the extracted regional characteristics is greatly reduced compared with the number of the local characteristics, the image retrieval efficiency is improved, and the universality and the expansibility are better.