Lingen

Lingen, a town in the Prussian province of Hanover, on the Ems canal, 43 m. N.N.W. of Münster by rail. Pop. 7500. It has iron foundries, machinery factories, railway workshops and a considerable trade in cattle, and among its other industries are weaving and malting and the manufacture of cloth. Lingen was the seat of a university from 1685 to 1819.

The county of Lingen, of which this town was the capital, was united in the middle ages with the county of Treklenburg. In 1508, however, it was separated from this and was divided into an upper and a lower county, but the two were united in 1541. A little, later Lingen was sold to the emperor Charles V., from whom it passed to his son, Philip II. of Spain, who ceded it in 1507 to Maurice, prince of Orange. After the death of the English king, William III., in 1702, it passed to Frederick I., king of Prussia, and in 1815 the lower county was transferred to Hanover, only to be united again with Prussia in 1866.

See Möller, Geschichte der vormaligen Grafschaft Lingen (Lingen, 1874); Herrmann, Die Erwerbung der Stadt und Grafschaft Lingen durch die Krone Preussen (Lingen, 1902); and Schriever, Geschichte des Kreiges Lingen (Lingen, 1905).