A magnetic recording medium comprising: a non-magnetic substrate; a ferromagnetic metal thin film provided on the non-magnetic substrate; a filmlike first carbon layer provided on the ferromagnetic metal thin film; and a hard and amorphous second carbon layer provided on the first carbon layer; the first and second carbon layers having first and second Raman spectra based on Raman spectrophotometry, respectively; assuming that when each of the first and second Raman spectra is decomposed into a first band of Gaussian function having a peak in the vicinity of 1380 cm.sup.-1 and a second band of Gaussian function having a peak in the vicinity of 1550 cm.sup.-1 in X-Y rectangular coordinates with an X-axis expressed in cm.sup.-1 and a Y-axis indicative of spectral intensity, a ratio of an area enclosed by the first band and the X-axis to an area enclosed by the second band and the X-axis represents "relative intensity", the first carbon layer has a relative intensity of 2 to 20, while the second carbon layer has a relative intensity of 0.8 to 3, a Vickers hardness of not less than 1,000 kg/mm.sup.2 and a thickness of 50 to 300 .ANG..