Numerous finds indicate a colonization of the location since the
Neolithic times (2400 to 1800 b.c.). Around 900 a.d. the parish church of St. Johann (today's Marktkirche) has been founded on a hillhock at the river
Werre and is the origin of today's city Lage. In 1274, Lage is mentioned the first time in a document for the life annuity of the local clergy by the sentence
"Jordanus plebanis in Lagis". In 1539, with the election of the first mayor self-administration rights are provable. In 1843,
borough rights were awarded by ruler
Leopold II, Prince of Lippe. In the years after 1880 the construction of the railway lines Herford to Detmold (1880) and Bielefeld to Lemgo (1893) linked Lage to the surrounding cities by train and created an
interchange station. During
World War I (1914-1918) the
hospital served as a
military hospital. Sections of the
Infantry Regiment 67 were quartered in the town. On 9 January 1933,
Adolf Hitler spoke on a central square (Jahnplatz) in Lage. During
World War II (1939-1945) several
attacks by
Allied bombers hit the center of Lage, causing over 60 casualties in the local population and destroying many houses. In 1970, the city merged to form a large municipality with a population of 32,000 with the surrounding communities Billinghausen, Ehrentrup, Hagen, Hardissen, Hedderhagen, Heiden, Heßloh, Horste, Kachtenhausen / Wellentrup, Müssen, Ohrsen, Pottenhausen, Stapelage, Waddenhausen and Wissentrup after local government reorganization. Lage is about from
Cologne, the largest city in the
North Rhine-Westphalia. It was the host of the 1996
European Cup Combined Events championships and hosts other international
sport of athletics competitions. ==Twin towns – sister cities==