In detail though, the county and city in the 17th and 18th were repeatedly conquered by Dutch and Spanish troops: initially Catholic, from 1541 to 1547 the citizens were forced to become Lutheran, then the troops of Catholic Charles V conquered the county and city and in 1550 gave it to his sister Mary, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands.

From 1555 to 1597 Lingen was the easternmost point of the Spanish Empire of Philip II and became part of the Eighty Years' War.

For two years the Prince-Bishopric of Münster had the city, which then from 1674 to 1713 was part of the Calvinist Union of Utrecht again, when Frederick I of Prussia inherited the county.

From 1807 to 1813 the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the region, and from 1810 to 1813 Lingen was part of France.

On 25 July 2019, Lingen set the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded within Germany with a daytime high temperature of 42.6 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) during a heat wave affecting much of Europe.