A magnetic recording medium is provided, which has at least one soft magnetic layer, at least one seed layer, at least one underlayer and at least one perpendicular magnetic recording layer, and is characterized in that the or each seed layer is comprised of a covalently bonded material. The covalently bonded material preferably predominantly comprises a nitride having a hexagonal crystal structure, more preferably, predominantly comprises aluminum nitride having a hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure. This magnetic recording medium is superior in recording and reproducing an information with high density.