According to one embodiment, a perpendicular magnetic recording medium includes a substrate, and a first magnetic layer and a second magnetic layer formed on the substrate, in which supposing that, for the first and second magnetic layers, respectively, uniaxial magnetic anisotropy constants are Ku1 and Ku2, saturation magnetizations are Ms1 and Ms2, anisotropic magnetic fields are Hk1 and Hk2 and the thicknesses are t1 and t2, then following conditions are satisfied that Ku1 and Ku2 are 3×106 erg/cc or more, Ms1 is smaller than Ms2, Hk1 is larger than Hk2 and t1 is larger than t2.