Texas of Asia (Mongolia nickname)

The country of Mongolia is sometimes called the “Texas of Asia” because both Mongolia and Texas have horses and plenty of flat, open land. “Mongolia—The Texas of Asia,” by Luther Anderson, was published in the January 1920 issue of Asia: Journal of the American Asiatic Association. U.S. President George Bush—a former governor of Texas—visited Mongolia in 2005. “Welcome to Mongolia, the Texas of Asia,” by Charlie Mayer, was published on NPR on November 14, 2005.
 
 
Wikipedia: Mongolia 
Mongolia Listeni/mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ (Mongolian: About this sound Монгол улс (help·info)) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Ulan Bator, the capital and also the largest city, is home to about 45% of the population. Mongolia’s political system is a parliamentary republic.
 
Google Books
Asia: Journal of the American Asiatic Association
Volume 20
January 1920
Pg. 45:
MONGOLIA-THE TEXAS OF ASIA
By LUTHER ANDERSON
 
Google News Archive
27 October 1927, Berkeley (CA) Daily Gazette, “Kalgan—on the Great Wall’s Horseshoe Curve,” pg. 4, cols. 5-6:
The Texas of Asia
“Another Mongolian product marketed through Kalgan is the hardy little Mongol pony of the plains.”
   
NPR
Welcome to Mongolia, the Texas of Asia
by Charlie Mayer
November 14, 2005 9:52 AM
President Bush is on his way to Asia, where he will visit Japan, South Korea, China and Mongolia. All Things Considered producer Charlie Mayer, who is spending a year in Mongolia, says that when the president gets there he might find that it feels a little familiar. Mongolia, Mayer notes, is the Texas of Asia.
(...)
We are continually struck by how much Mongolia looks and feels like our native Texas — the “open range” of vast, rolling landscapes and grazing herds of animals watched over my men on horses. In the not-too-distant past, semi-nomadic “cowboys” drove large herds of cattle across the open range in much of Texas and other parts of the American West.
 
It’s all bueno
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Texas, the Mongolia of America
Published July 16th in the UB Post
There are more similarities between Mongolia and Texas than one would think. They both contain vast stretches of land that host everything from empty steppes to gorgeous mountains. Both have large livestock and mineral industries, and share a sense of pride attached to hailing from the region. Both are patriotic, sometimes kitschy and above all, solipsistic. Even more interesting, some of the hats and boots Mongolian men wear resemble Texas attire. The landscapes are harsh in their own right, one hotter than sin and the other colder than hell. There’s even a Texas Pub in Mongolia, a popular restaurant with burgers and steaks. Mongolia seems to know some about Texas, but how much does Texas know about Mongolia?
 
Texas Monthly
Greetings from the Texas of Kazakhstan
Why Shymkent, a city in South Kazakhstan, proudly thinks of itself as the Lone Star State of Central Asia.
by Sonia Smith
Wed August 7, 2013 8:00 am
(...)
Ask why this area is considered the “Texas” of Kazakhstan and you typically get some variation of the following answer: geography (located in the same south and central part of the country as the Lone Star State), cows (lots), and lawlessness (the Wild West of Kazakhstan!). To be fair, the “Texas of X” construction is one that pops up with some frequency. See Bavaria ( “the Texas of Germany” ), Mongolia ( “the Texas of Asia” ), Nigeria ( “the Texas of Africa” ). And Kazakhstan, with its 30 billion barrels of proven oil reserves , itself has been dubbed “the Texas of Central Asia.”