The municipality was incorporated on January 1, 2015, via the amalgamation of the Rural Municipality of Rhineland and the towns of Gretna and Plum Coulee.[2] It was formed as a requirement of The Municipal Amalgamations Act, which required municipalities with a population less than 1,000 to amalgamate with one or more neighbouring municipalities by 2015.[3] The Government of Manitoba initiated the amalgamations for municipalities to meet the 1997 minimum population requirement of 1,000 to incorporate a municipality.[4]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Rhineland had a population of 5,819 living in 1,641 of its 1,748 total private dwellings, a change of -2.1% from its 2016 population of 5,945. With a land area of 958.48 km2 (370.07 sq mi), it had a population density of 6.1/km2 (15.7/sq mi) in 2021.[5]