The National Capital Region (NCR) is a planning region centred upon the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi in India. It encompasses Delhi and several districts surrounding it from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The NCR and the associated National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) were created in 1985 to plan the development of the region and to evolve harmonized policies for the control of land-uses and development of infrastructure in the region. Prominent cities of NCR include Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurugram, and Noida. The NCR is a rural-urban region, with a population of over 46,069,000 and an urbanisation level of 62.6%. As well as the cities and towns, the NCR contains ecologically sensitive areas like the Aravalli ridge, forests, wildlife and bird sanctuaries. The Delhi Extended Urban Agglomeration, a part of the NCR, had an estimated GDP of $370 billion (measured in terms of GDP PPP) in 2015–16. History The National Capital Region (NCR) and its planning board were created under the National Capital Region Planning Board Act of 1985. That 1985 Act defined the NCR as being the whole of Delhi; the Haryana districts of Gurgaon, Faridabad and Sonipat, Rohtak (then including Jhajjar tehsil) and the Rewari tehsil then in Mahendragarh district; and the Uttar Pradesh districts of Bulandshahr, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut (then including Baghpat tehsil), and Ghaziabad (then including Hapur tehsil), and some part of the Rajasthan district of Alwar. The 1985 boundary of the NCR covered an area of . Prior to the creation of the NCR, an area described as the Delhi Metropolitan Area (DMA) was described in the 1962 Master Plan for Delhi. That plan defined the DMA as comprising the National Capital Territory and the ring towns of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Gurgaon, Bahadurgarh and Loni, also certain rural areas, which had a population of the somewhat less than 2.1 million in 1951. The following "Master Plan for Delhi", approved in August 1990, added Noida, Bahadurgarh and the then-proposed township of Kundli to the DMA, which consequently covered an area of 3,182 km2. Gautam Budh Nagar district was created in 1997 out of the existing NCR districts of Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr. The city of Noida was the location of the new district's headquarters. Also in 1997 Baghpat district was created from Baghpat tehsil of Meerut district. In July 2013, the NCR was expanded to include three more districts, Bhiwani, and Mahendragarh in