10 Francs Diogo Cao 1482

Diogo Cão was the Portuguese explorer who reached the mouth of the Congo River around 1482–1484, becoming the first European to make contact with the Kingdom of Kongo. His expedition planted a stone pillar — a padrão — at the river's mouth, a practice used by Portuguese navigators to claim discovery. The Democratic Republic of Congo issued this piece in 2000 under the Banque Centrale du Congo, a period when the country had only recently shed the name Zaire following Laurent-Désiré Kabila's seizure of power in 1997.

The padrão Cão erected near present-day Soyo still partially survives.