Wangen lies on a hill above the Fils Valley, on the edge of the Schurwald and around five kilometres from the county town of Göppingen.

The edges of the municipal area border Adelberg to the north, Börtlingen and Rechberghausen to the east, Göppingen to the south, Uhingen to the west and the town of Schorndorf in the neighbouring district of Rems-Murr-Kreis.

The village was first recorded in writing in 1274, when Friedrich von Staufeneck sold all his estates in Wangen and Oberwälden to the Abbey of Adelberg.

In 1806, the Degenfeld family's fiefdom of Rechberghausen and the Klosteramt (an administrative division centering on the estates of a dissolved monastery) of Adelberg were abolished and the lands transferred to the new Oberamt of Göppingen, which in 1934 was renamed as a Kreis, and in 1938 as an enlarged Landkreis.

The society plays an active role in the life of the community through its work in both spiritual and secular events.