A perpendicular magnetic recording medium which has been improved to be suitable for high-density magnetic recording and a magnetic recording apparatus using the medium are provided. The magnetic back film of a dual-layer perpendicular recording medium is caused to be constituted by a plurality of layers, and a keeper layer 17 for keeping perpendicular magnetization and layers 13 and 15 for improving the recording efficiency of a recording head are functionally separated from one another. Further, the magnetization orientations of the soft magnetic films excluding the keeper layer are defined to be in the circumferential direction of the disk, whereby the frequency of occurrence of noise is decreased.