According to one embodiment, a perpendicular magnetic recording medium is provided, which includes a non-magnetic granular underlayer formed on a substrate and containing metal grains of a first metal and a grain boundary layer surrounding the metal grains, each metal grain including a projection projecting from the boundary layer and a bottom portion embedded in the grain boundary layer, and a contact angle of the edge of the projection to the surface of the grain boundary layer being 45 DEG to 85 DEG , a non-magnetic intermediate layer formed on a surface of each projection and a magnetic recording layer having a projection pattern formed on the basis of a pattern of the projections in the non-magnetic intermediate layer via the non-magnetic intermediate layer.