A magnetic position measuring device includes a magnetic scale and a scanning unit movable relative thereto in at least one measuring direction. The magnetic scale has scale regions positioned at a regular pitch and have an oppositely oriented magnetization, the pitch indicating the extension of a scale region along the measuring direction. The scanning unit has at least one first detector unit cell, which includes three stripe-shaped magnetoresistive detector elements set apart from one another in the measuring direction, the longitudinal directions of the detector elements each having an orientation oriented perpendicular to the measuring direction. Adjacent detector elements along the measuring direction in the first detector unit cell have a distance of, for example, one twelfth of the pitch, relative to one another.