An optical recording medium includes a recording layer containing as a primary component an alloy containing at least two elements selected from the group consisting of Fe, Al and Si and the alloy contained in the recording layer as a primary component has a composition [x₁, y₁, z₁] in terms of the ternary composition diagram that falls within a region of a pentagon defined by straight lines connecting points [57, 43, 0], [0, 55, 45], [15, 0, 85], [89, 11, 0] and [0, 16, 84] in the ternary composition diagram. According to the thus configured optical recording medium, only minimal load is placed on the global environment.