In this paper, we focus on a similar image retrieval based on color-content. Two-phase matching strategy is adopted for achieving speed and accuracy of the proposed retrieval: The first phase of matching is intended to produce a candidate images list which are similar to the sample image using the global color histogram; The second phase of matching acts as a filter on the list obtained by the first phase, deleting dissimilar images using spatial distribution of colors in image.It is common knowledge that most of the images are dominated by a small number of colors, called dominant colors. We propose dominant color matrices for representing the spatial distribution of dominant colors in image, which can serve as a basis for measuring the spatial similarity between images.In order to calculate the spatial similarity on dominant color matrices, we use two-dimensional DP matching technology extended from conventional DP matching. In addition, we have also applied the proposed approach to a range of color images, and obtained positive results.