Provided are a thermal head that has a cavity portion at a position corresponding to heating resistors and is capable of improving thermal efficiency while ensuring strength of the cavity portion, and a printer including the thermal head. The thermal head (1) includes: a supporting substrate (3) including a concave portion (2) in a surface thereof; an upper substrate (5) bonded in a stacked state to the surface of the supporting substrate (3); and a heating resistor (7) provided at a position, which corresponds to the concave portion (2), of a surface of the upper substrate (5), in which a centerline average roughness of at least a region of a back surface of the upper substrate (5) is set to be less than 5 nm, the region being opposed to the concave portion (2).