It is located on the east Mount Lofty Ranges foothills.

The Hundred of North Rhine was proclaimed in 1851[1] but the name was changed in 1918 to the current, after Admiral John Jellicoe, as part of a process to remove "names of enemy origin" at the time of World War I.

[1] The Hundred of Jellicoe includes the township and most of the locality of Truro, Towitta, Keyneton and a portion of the western edge of the locality of Sedan.

[2] The North Rhine flows southwards through the hundred from its source at the north western boundary between Moculta and Keyneton (part of the western boundary between the Hundred of Moorooroo and Jellicoe) to join the Marne about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Eden Valley.

Pioneer Johann Menge named the North and South Rhine, not for any particular similarity to the River Rhine of western Europe, but because he expected a similar yield of wine from the region.