We have used the collisional broadening of neutral neon lines to determine the gas temperature of a microwave discharge at atmospheric pressure. The gas temperature can be obtained from the van der Waals broadening, provided that the Stark broadening is negligible. Thus, the variation of the Stark broadening of the Hbeta , Halpha , Hgamma lines has been compared with the Lorentzian width of several prominent neutral neon lines from low-lying levels (close to the ground state). The values of gas temperature obtained have been compared with those provided by OH radicals with an excellent agreement.