Tena, town, eastern Ecuador, located in the Oriente region (tropical rainforest section of Ecuador, east of the Andes Mountains) on an affluent of the Napo River. A missionary settlement, it has a subsistence economy based on some stock raising and on barter among the lowland Quechua, who constitute much of the population of the surrounding region. The Quechua people have gained increasing territorial rights since 1990. Pop. (2001) 16,669; (2010) 23,307.