Size

• Longhouses were just as the name describes: long houses -- they were very large structures that could reach 100 to 200 feet in length. The dwelling would be the equivalent of a two-story home today, built to 20 feet high and about 20 feet wide.
  
  

Style

• The longhouse was built in a similar style to wigwams. Both were built with a main wooden frame and covered with mats or sheets of birch bark. Wigwams were shaped like cones or domes, but longhouses were built with what we think of as a more modern-day building style. Multiple longhouses were usually grouped together to form a village.
  
  

Inside a Longhouse

• Mats and wooden screens separated the inside of a longhouse into divided spaces and rooms, usually about 10 feet by 10 feet. A second-floor sleeping area was built up with platforms, and fires were built down the middle aisle through the center of the longhouse.
  
  

Geography

• The Iroquois lived primarily in the northeastern United States and Canada. The dwellings were used by the Iroquois 300 to 500 years ago in New England, New York and Pennsylvania and in Canada in the Quebec and Ontario regions.
  
  

Communal Living

• Longhouses were designed for large extended families called clans. The New York State Museum notes that family members in a longhouse could include a up to 20 family units with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The families were usually related through the mothers' side and were considered a clan.