It is shown analytically and numerically on the basis of the kinetic theory that the heat‐conduction equation is not suitable for describing the temperature field of a gas in the continuum limit around bodies at rest in a closed domain or in an infinite domain without flow at infinity, where the flow vanishes in this limit. The behavior of the temperature field is first discussed by asymptotic analysis of the time‐independent boundary‐value problem of the Boltzmann equation for small Knudsen numbers. Then, simple examples are studied numerically: as the Knudsen number of the system approaches zero, the temperature field obtained by the kinetic equation approaches that obtained by the asymptotic theory and not that of the heat‐conduction equation, although the velocity of the gas vanishes. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.