All of the Commonwealth of Virginia used to be Virginia Indian territory. Indigenous peoples have occupied the region for at least 12,000 years. Their population has been estimated to have been about 50,000 at the time of European colonization. At contact, Virginian tribes belonged to tribes and spoke languages belonging to three major language families: roughly, Algonquian along the coast and Tidewater region, Siouan above the Fall Line, and Iroquoian in the interior. About 30 Algonquian tribes were allied in the powerful Powhatan paramount chiefdom along the coast, which was estimated to include 15,000 people at the time of English colonization.