Perpendicular magnetic recording medium and magentic recording and reproducing apparatus

A perpendicular magnetic recording medium that is excellent in terms of electromagnetic conversion characteristics and can achieve the demand for the recording density growth, and a magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus provided with the perpendicular magnetic recording medium are provided. The perpendicular magnetic recording medium has at least a backing layer, an underlayer, an intermediate layer, and a perpendicular magnetic recording layer sequentially laminated on a non-magnetic substrate, in which the backing layer includes at least a soft magnetic film having an amorphous structure; the underlayer includes a first underlayer and a second underlayer laminated from the non-magnetic substrate side; the first underlayer is an fcc-structured alloy layer including an fcc-structured element and a bcc-structured element, the second underlayer includes a NiW alloy; and the intermediate layer includes Ru or a Ru alloy.