Neural networks play a significant role in data classification. Complex-valued Hopfield Neural Network (CHNN) is mostly used in various fields including the image classification. Though CHNN has proven its credibility in the classification task, it has a few issues. Activation function of complex-valued neuron maps to a unit circle in the complex plane affecting the resolution factor, flexibility and compatibility to changes, during adaptation in retrieval systems. The proposed work demonstrates Content-Based Image Retrieval System (CBIR) with Hyperbolic Hopfield Neural Networks (HHNN), an analogue of CHNN for classifying images. Activation function of the Hyperbolic neuron is not cyclic in hyperbolic plane. The images are mathematically represented and indexed using the six basic features. The proposed HHNN classifier is trained, tested and evaluated through extensive experiments considering individual features and four combined features for indexing. The obtained results prove that HHNN guides retrieval process, enhances system performance and minimizes the cost of implementing Neural Network Classifier-based image retrieval system. © 2021 World Scientific Publishing Company.