A magnetic recording medium may include an orientation control layer, a lower recording layer, an intermediate layer, and an upper recording layer that are stacked. The lower recording layer may have a coercivity higher than that of the upper recording layer, and the intermediate layer may include a layer including a magnetic material and having a saturation magnetization of 50 emu/cc or higher. The upper recording layer may include columnar crystals continuous with crystal particles forming the intermediate layer in a direction in which the layers are stacked.