A dielectric ceramic (and capacitor containing it) balancing high temperature load characteristics and temperature characteristics of capacitance even when layer thickness is less than 1 μm has a mixture of different crystal grains containing a barium titanate compound as the main constituent. The first crystal grains can contain rare earth element solid solution region 1 at the surface layer section. The second crystal grains have a core-shell structure including a shell section having a rare earth element solid solution present. The first and second crystal grains are 12% to 84% f and 16% to 88%, respectively, of the total number of crystal grains.