So far, 35 municipal government departments and 165 agencies, with about 120,000 employees, have relocated their offices to Lucheng town in Tongzhou district.

On Thursday evening, the nameplate on the government's old main building in the downtown area was taken off and handed over to the archives.

Beijing is shifting some of its administrative functions out of the city center to Tongzhou to help address problems including traffic congestion and air pollution. The move is also part of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development plan.