North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota, United States. It was founded as North Dakota Agricultural College in 1890 as the state's land-grant university. It is classified among "R1-Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". NDSU is part of the North Dakota University System. The university also operates North Dakota's agricultural research extension centers distributed across the state on 18,488 acres (74.82 km2). In 2015, NDSU's annual economic impact on the state and region was estimated to be $1.3 billion by the NDUS Systemwide Economic Study by the School of Economics at North Dakota State University.