The Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America.

After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples of present-day central and upstate New York coalesce as distinct tribes, by the 16th century or earlier, they come together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power".

The original Iroquois League is often known as the Five Nations, as it is composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations.

After the Tuscarora nation join the League in 1722, the Iroquois become known as the Six Nations.

The League is embodied in the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty hereditary sachems.

Other Iroquoian peoples lived along the St. Lawrence River, around the Great Lakes and in the American Southeast, but they are not part of the Haudenosaunee and often competed and warred with these tribes.When Europeans first arrive in North America, the Haudenosaunee are based in what is now the northeastern United States, primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York west of the Hudson River and through the Finger Lakes region.

Today, the Iroquois live primarily in New York, Quebec, and Ontario.The Iroquois League has also been known as the Iroquois Confederacy.

Some modern scholars distinguish between the League and the Confederacy.

According to this interpretation, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy is the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization.

The League still exists.

The Confederacy dissolves after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.