Buckingham Palace said on Sunday it has launched an account with online photo management site Flickr.

The British Monarchy Website Flickr account streams both up-to-the-minute images of royal engagements and archive photographs from the royal collection.

The launch is timed to coincide with the summer opening of Buckingham Palace, as the site highlights photographs specially commissioned for the palace's exhibition The Queen's Year, which opens on July 27.

The Flickr account also features historic photographs from current Royal Collection exhibitions at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and on loan to museums and galleries around the UK.

They include masterpieces of early British photography collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Flickr is the latest in a line of social media to be harnessed by Buckingham Palace. In 2007 a Royal You Tube channel was launched, along with a new royal website. A British monarchy Twitter account followed in 2009.

(Reporting Isabel Coles: Editing by Steve Addison)

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