Let $ T:[0,1]\to [0,1] $ be an expanding Markov map with a finite partition. Let $ \mu _\phi $ be the invariant Gibbs measure associated with a Hölder continuous potential $ \phi $. For $ x\in [0,1] $ and $ \kappa>0 $, we investigate the size of the uniform approximation set

$$ \begin{align*}\mathcal U^\kappa(x):=\{y\in[0,1]:\text{ for all } N\gg1, \text{ there exists } n\le N, \text{ such that }|T^nx-y|<N^{-\kappa}\}.\end{align*} $$

The critical value of $ \kappa $ such that $ \operatorname {\mathrm {\dim _H}}\mathcal U^\kappa (x)=1 $ for $ \mu _\phi $-almost every (a.e.) $ x $ is proven to be $ 1/\alpha _{\max } $, where $ \alpha _{\max }=-\int \phi \,d\mu _{\max }/\int \log |T'|\,d\mu _{\max } $ and $ \mu _{\max } $ is the Gibbs measure associated with the potential $ -\log |T'| $. Moreover, when $ \kappa>1/\alpha _{\max } $, we show that for $ \mu _\phi $-a.e. $ x $, the Hausdorff dimension of $ \mathcal U^\kappa (x) $ agrees with the multifractal spectrum of $ \mu _\phi $.

For a non-generic, yet dense subset of $C^{1}$ expanding Markov maps of the interval we prove the existence of uncountably many Lyapunov optimizing measures which are ergodic, fully supported and have positive entropy. These measures are equilibrium states for some Hölder continuous potentials. We also prove the existence of another non-generic dense subset for which the optimizing measure is unique and supported on a periodic orbit. A key ingredient is a new $C^{1}$ perturbation theorem which allows us to interpolate between expanding Markov maps and the shift map on a finite number of symbols.