To provide a medium and method for recording optical information precisely recording information.

An optical disk 1 is provided with a substrate 2 and a recording layer 3 formed on the substrate 2, on which a recording mark is formed and information is recorded by utilizing irradiation with a recording beam 6 and application of a magnetic field 7, and when the wavelength of the recording beam is defined as λ, the size of the shortest recording mark of the recording mark is ≥λ/40, and ≤λ/5. In the optical information recording method, the recording beam 6 used at a recording time has a substantially normally distributed intensity distribution, and when the information is recorded by a so-called magnetic field modulation system, the beam of fixed intensity within the range between the maximum intensity of this intensity distribution and the intensity of 1/e2 times (e is base of natural logarithm) of the maximum intensity is used, and on the other hand, when the information is recorded by a so-called optical modulation system, the beam of the intensity within the range between the maximum intensity of this intensity distribution and the intensity of 1/e2 times (e is base of natural logarithm) of the maximum intensity is used to be intensity modulated.