J.K. Rowling wrote much of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Portugal after moving there in 1991.
Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, in 1991 and worked as an English teacher. She married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992, and their daughter Jessica was born in 1993. Rowling began writing the early Harry Potter material during this period.
She returned to the United Kingdom in 1993 and eventually settled in Edinburgh, Scotland. The first Harry Potter novel was completed and revised after her return, before being submitted to agents and publishers.
Portugal was therefore an important stage in the book’s development, but not the only place where it was written. The story’s famous origin account also includes the train journey from Manchester to London in 1990, when Rowling first conceived Harry and the wizarding world.